


Worthy

by Jeanne_Morningstar



Category: Marvel (Comics), Thor (Comics)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Cunnilingus, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Gay Feelings, If She Be Worthy, Jane Foster Thor, Jane!Thor, Masturbation, Sharing a Body, Work In Progress, comics canon with some MCU canon layered in, comicsverse Darcy, intense lady loving, intensive comics continuity angst and gay stuff, the sexy stuff is in ch 3 + the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-09-13 18:12:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16897515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeanne_Morningstar/pseuds/Jeanne_Morningstar
Summary: This is the story of the life of Jane Foster, called Thor, Goddess of Thunder: doctor, mother, survivor, hero. Twice she tried to become a god. The first time she failed, the second she succeeded. This is the story of how she became worthy.





	1. Darcy

**Author's Note:**

> This story branches off from the comics verse after the events of Secret Wars, drawing on Jane's entire history up to then, and also layering in bits of the MCU. I essentially wrote this around the comics continuity, reimagining it and reinterpreting it while keeping as many of the details as I can.

Light flashed through the halls of Asgard. Jane clung to Thor, heart beating, caked in sweat. Odin, father of the gods, pointed his finger and proclaimed

"JANE FOSTER... YOU ARE NOT WORTHY!!"

Jane woke from her dream, gripping the sheets. She was not in Asgard; she was in her apartment on Earth, with her alarm buzzing in the background. 

The dream didn't trouble her, not anymore. It was a familiar nightmare now, one she'd known for a long time.

After a moment she realized it wasn't the work alarm or the wake-up alarm, it was the hero alarm. That was one of the spells woven into her phone by the magicks of Asgard to help her do her job, which would alert her if there were any evil gods, rampaging monsters, or other villains of the type Thor would face. Why couldn't supervillains wait to attack the city until she'd got enough sleep?

Grumbling, Jane picked up her phone, turned off the alarm, and checked the weather. Thirty percent chance of thunder, it said. She smiled to herself. It'd be a good deal more than that.

Beneath that was an icon of a thunderbolt, with a word written beneath it: WORTHY. She pressed the button and heard the familiar crash of thunder, felt the energy burst throughout her body, felt the sludge of anxiety that she always woke up with slip off.

She was no more a frail, tired, anxious mortal woman. She was the goddess of thunder: THOR! And she was ready to face whatever challenges the worlds of mortals or gods would bring.

The man in the apartment below heard that awful noise again and barged up the stairs, knocking on the door. But no one was there.

Thor flung out the hammer ahead of her and flew off into the sky. There was nothing in the world quite like flying. Feeling the wind rush past your face, watching the buildings as they flew past and the people below as they looked up in awe. Even veteran New Yorkers looked up as Thor flew by. That had even been true for the old Thor; how much more so the new one.

It didn't take her long to see what had woken her up. There was a monster rampaging through Times Square. This wasn't an uncommon thing at all these days. There was something strange though: normally, there was a wave of excitement whenever there was a real hero vs villain battle, with crowds of people gawking around and catching photos with their cell phones. This time, they seemed to be frozen in fear. Several people were on the ground, clutching themselves and writhing.

"Hold!" said Thor, "or face the wrath of the Goddess of Thunder!" The creature looked up at her and hissed. It seemed to be growing and losing tentacles and other limbs, eyes, teeth, as if rising from beneath the churning ocean of its flesh. Something took shape on its shoulder like a lotus pod filled with eyes. Jane shuddered. She had been deeply unnerved by lotus pods for as long as she could remember.

She threw her hammer and it flashed and wove through the air. She could move the hammer with more grace and subtlety than its previous wielder ever could. The creature's arms, tentacles, and crab-like limbs lashed out at it, but could not catch ahold of it. But it moved too quickly, and Jane could not land a hit on it herself as the hammer returned to her hand. One of the creature's limbs, hardened into a chitinous blade, lashed out at Jane and grazed her face. She stiffened up and rolled with the hit just in time.

Hitting the ground and feeling the sidewalk crumble under her, she looked around at the crowd, still frozen, their eyes wide with terror. It was little known to Thor but Jane, deep within her, remembered that feeling all too well: the numbing fear of being caught up in things beyond your control, being a pawn in the game of gods. Her anger at the creature redoubled, and its manifold eyes stared wide as Thor flung the hammer with all her might. This was a swift, direct strike, and it did its job–the creature staggered back and screamed, vanishing in a cloud of darkness.

But before it vanished, its lotus-pod eyes looked into her own. Thor suddenly felt as if she'd been stripped naked, as if all the anxieties that surrounded her she couldn't name rose up at once. Then the creature was gone as if it had never been there. Everyone crowding through Times Square looked around, caught their breath, and walked on, hesitance now in their steps.

Well, thought Thor, that was over with quickly enough. Except it really wasn't–she didn't know what the creature was and what it wanted, and it was still out there. She hated when she couldn't resolve a battle in one go. She knew she'd be carrying the anxieties of it with her throughout the week, both as Thor and as Jane, in addition to all her work and the other thing she was supposed to do today which, of course, she couldn't remember now.

She touched down near a dumpster, deciding the quickest thing to do was just transform now while everyone was trying to move on and forget the sight of the creautre, and take a ride to the hospital. The flesh of the goddess gave way to that of a mortal, tired and sore, all her worries and doubts fell back on her. And then she remembered she was still in her jammies. Cursing to herself, she turned on the hammer again, changed back to Thor, flew back to her apartment and got herself dressed and made up as best she could.

She was late to work, of course, and the guilt hit her as soon as she walked through the door. She did her best to pull her weight while keeping a space for her other life and setting up excuses for when she'd be gone, trying to be compassionate and helpful and available while knowing she might have to disappear for weeks on end to fight in Asgard. She'd told her co-workers there was a sickness in her family and might have to leave at any moment to take care of that. She felt awful for making such excuses, for playing with the emotions and lives of people around her, even if it was necessary. She remembered suddenly why she'd found Donald Blake so frustrating back in the day.

She was questioning her decision to come back to New York. This would all be easier to pull off in Broxton. Here there were more pressures, and it felt like there were more eyes on her all the time. In a big city, it was easier in some ways to disappear, but if you were being watched it was harder to escape.

"Rough night?" said one of the nurses who worked for her.

"Mm-hmm," said Jane, who didn't doubt she looked like a mess. "How are things here?"

"No better or worse," she said. 

It was an intensely stressful day at work. With all the assaults going on on health care, every day was stressful now. There were some people she just couldn't help no matter how hard she tried, because she didn't have the resources. She came home as she often did, incoherently angry and tired and wishing she could just sleep forever, but knowing she couldn't escape the demands of her two lives for long.

If only, she thought, I could be Thor and just take my hammer and smash everything that's wrong with the world–all the people in Washington with more money than anyone could ever need who are starving the poor, all the warmongers and wealth-hoarders... But even as a goddess, there was only so much she could do. Jane sighed. If only there were a supervillain around she could go smash and get rid of all the anger. Then she shuddered and felt instant revulsion. She didn't like having thoughts like that, not as Jane. Jane Foster was not someone who enjoyed violence and hurting people. She was a healer, a caretaker. And besides, a supervillain battle would take time, and there was so much she had to do–

The phone went off and she remembered what it was she'd been planning earlier. 

She rushed home, took a hurried shower, and got herself re-made up as best she could–she wanted to look her best when she saw her old friend. After some thought she decided to wear one of her usual flannel shirts. She was going to a coffee shop, she reminded herself, not a fancy restaurant, and her old friend never stood on ceremony. She'd just look ridiculous if she fancied herself up too much.

She realized, walking over, just how long it had been since she'd out with friends doing anything. The saying was that you could get a job, an apartment or a relationship in New York but not all three. Jane had had to concentrate on all her hospital work while keeping time free for hitting gods, supervillains and space invaders with a hammer, so that meant very little time for friendships or relationships. She wasn't dating anyone from work, and wasn't particularly eager to have another workplace romance, and that was most of her potential dating pool right now, so dating was off the table and that was probably for the best. But she didn't even spend a lot of time with friends. It was rare she'd set aside this much time for a social visit, but this wasn't just any friend she was seeing.

The coffee shop was small and crowded, but oddly peaceful, as coffee shops were. Jane was always a little on edge going on here since this was where she'd made the choice, not so long ago, that changed her life. Somehow that made it oddly appropriate.

She shouldn't be still nervous about this. They'd gotten back in touch after her bout with cancer, and they'd renewed their friendship, talking to each other online for long hours late at night. But still she was scared–what if she didn't want anything to do with the person Jane was now?

And there she was, walking through the door. Obviously she was older now, she'd gained some weight, but that wasn't a problem at all, Jane hated how a statement like that was by default seen as negative. She looked good. She looked... very herself. Different, but she was the girl Jane knew, the one who'd been one of the most important parts of her life, the source of support where she had almost none. Dark curly hair that cascaded down her shoulder, bright grey-blue eyes, that darted around taking in everything, a strong nose, full lips. It was her. 

She put a bit more effort into her eyebrows these days, wore darker lipstick. She was wearing a black t-shirt that had "Call Me Maybe" written in the Misfits font. She'd circled back around to the kind of punk-goth she'd had when they first met, wearing a tattered old leather jacket that was buttons a mix of social justice and fandom stuff, rather than the slacker-hipster style she'd had in late high school and early college.

As soon as she saw Jane, those full lips turned into a smile. "Janey!" Darcy bounded across the coffeeshop and hugged her tight, feeling nice and warm and soft and relaxing. Instantly, Jane felt her tensions ebb away, just like the old days.

"Oh my god, I can't believe I'm actually here with you. She scooted over a chair, plopped down on the chair and leaned in over the table. "So how are things."

Jane sat down across from her, letting herself gradually relax and draw toward her. "Could be better, could be worse." She shrugged and half-giggled. "You know how it is. The whole world's on fire, everything's a pain, but I'm still here."

"You sure are. You're really the best, Janey."

"Aww, I'm OK." Jane laughed. "So how about you?"

"Eh, similar. I've been adjunct teaching and doing various things on the side for a while, you know how it is. Everyone I know says I shoulda been sensible and got a STEM degree, but like, there's no jobs for people with STEM degrees either. That's the good thing about being a liberal arts major right now: everyone's struggling, not just me."

Jane laughed. "Yeah, you'd think with all the gods and demons in the world right now, people would see the value of studying anthropology of religion."

They talked a lot about the little details of their lives, about colleagues that bugged them and day to day frustrations. Jane was careful not to say anything about Thor. Before long all her anxiety had slipped away, and then they realize how late it was getting and hastily said goodbye, hugged one last time and walked into in the rain that had slipped in without their noticing. Jane headed home, barely observing the world around her, her mind filled with thoughts of her friend. A whole host of memories were swimming up from the depths of her mind, memories she hadn't thought about in a good long time, maybe not since she'd gone to medical school.

She thought about her childhood, about how it all began.

It hadn't always been an easy one. She'd grown up in a suburb in upstate New York. Life seemed alright on the surface, but there were deeper problems beneath. Her mother was someone who'd been in grad school studying medieval literature, before she dropped out due to stress. Her family lived in the city and as a young child Jane visited there fairly often; it was always a strange, disorienting, magical experience. Her father was an electrician. He came from a family background with a history of violence, addiction, abuse. Jane had lived all her life around powerful, difficult personalities. It might have seemed strange she took in the end to life among the gods but the truth is her life has always been defined by violence.

It had gotten worse when her mother had died when she was nine years old, and she and her father had moved in with his brother and his family. The conflicts that had always been on the edge of her life were now at the center. Her father's family felt like wicked relatives out of a fairy tale. There was an ages-old feud that divided the Foster side of the family, one Jane never fully understood. They were always fighting with someone–with her father, with their children, with each other, with anyone who happened to be in earshot. Jane survived by being as quiet and unnoticeable as possible. She became an awkward, introverted child, shy and conscientious and almost painfully compassionate, instinctively dealing with the violence around her by retreating into the background and making herself as unnoticeable as possible.

What Jane did, mostly, was stay in her room and read. She and her mother had never had a chance to talk much. Their main connection was her large pile of books, which her father could never bear to get rid of. She used to read books of adventure and strangeness, like the Chronicles of Narnia and A Wrinkle in Time, and dreamed of visiting other worlds. 

She read about history and mythology. She read romances, mostly Regency and Gothic, and learned about love from the school of rakes and heroines in magnificent dresses, troubled men and haunted mansions on windy moors. She read about the stars and she read about the human body, and was fascinated by how they were put together, both the universe and the small universe that was the body. 

It would have been appropriate if the Norse myths were her favorite reading as a child, but they weren't. While she loved all the books of the D'Aulaires and Roger Lancelyn Green, her heart was mostly in Olympus and the tales of King Arthur. She had little to do with Asgard until she went there herself.

When she was young, doctor is her favorite game to play, and she mostly played it by herself. She took care of small abandoned things–eggs, little rocks, discarded cans–and made them her patients. She cared for each of them intensely and cried if she lost one.

Lost in her books and her games, she was only dimly aware of the world outside of her for much of her childhood. The world rudely impinged on her in the form of an intense fixation on a girl in her class who she desperately wanted to be friends with, but that of course went nowhere. She didn't have any real friends outside her father until the second year of middle school, until Darcy.

In those days she had short hair and wore piercings, an unbelievably awkward punk/goth wannabe. There was something Jane found both off-putting and intriguing about her. She was obviously trying too hard, but seemed genuinely cool because she didn't seem to care what anyone else thought of her. Everytime they sat in class together, Jane found herself looking at Darcy, and Darcy smiled at her whenever she sat down. She was one of the few other people who seemed to notice Jane existed. This made her uncomfortable, but whenever Darcy skipped class–which was often–she found herself missing her. It went on like this for a month or so, with neither of them talking to each other.

It was Jane, in fact, who made the first move, walking up to her after class and saying hi, barely audible. It turned out that while Darcy had never talked much in class before, once they started talking she never shut up. Darcy was as loud and tactless as Jane was quiet and thoughtful; they seemed to make up for each other's weaknesses. By now people were noticing Jane and starting to mock her and call her for attention, and Jane had never been good at standing up for herself, so Darcy was her champion and protector. She even started a fistfight with some other girls and got into detention.

Darcy shared Jane's intense curiosity and fascination with the world around her, and they had long conversations about all kinds of esoteric subjects. She'd always been most interested in myths and religions, and unlike Jane, she did know a lot about Asgard. As a middle school student she was already reading the Poetic Edda and Snorri. She was Jewish, as was Jane through her mother, but Jane always tended to keep that part of herself at a distance, partially from her fear of standing out and partially because she had lost touch with her mother's family after she died. Darcy was far more observant, though people who didn't know her would never guess. She was a Jewish witch who was equally knowledgeable in the tarot and the Torah. She was interested in all kinds of religious experience, in exploring all the different things people believed and why.

Jane had gone over to Darcy's house often, now a refuge from her own home. They used to sit and watch fansubs together on the VCR. These were the days of Miami Mike, when you had to order actual video tape fansubs from often shady characters. Luckily Darcy's parents, college professors who'd vaguely known Jane's mother, were indulgent and just as nerdy as her. She and Jane sat on the couch together and watched episodes of Fushigi Yugi and uncensored Sailor Moon. Darcy introduced her to fanfic and shipping. Sometimes they roleplayed out characters on IRC, feverishly imagining men they shipped together having angsty, romantic sex and taking on their roles. Jane had intense, floridly written IRC sex with Darcy for hours on end and somehow convinced herself throughout the whole thing that she was straight.

In the summertime Jane went to vacation with Darcy and her family every so often and they went out to the beach together, walking late at night, hand in hand. At first they had long conversations about life but after a while they started walking quietly, looking up at the stars, exulting in each other's presence. One day, when Jane was a junior in high school, they were standing together, staring up at the stars and listening to the roaring of the waves, and Jane was so absorbed in that and the feeling of her friend's hand she almost didn't notice the car.

A car came roaring down on them, a shiny new Toyota with a drunk driver at the wheel. Jane saw the bright lights bearing down on her just in time to pull Darcy out of the way. Jane could see it all with ghastly slowness, the car hitting her friend and swerving, her limp body crashing into the water, blood drifting up into the ocean. Jane desperately called 9/11 and waited there, staring and praying to anything and nothing, while she waited for the ambulance to come.

For the next few weeks she didn't spend her nights in the beach but in the hospital, standing by her friend's bedside. She told Darcy her thoughts and fears and frustrations, just like always, even though she didn't know if she could listen. She watched her friend's body lie peacefully on the bed, her chest rising up and down.

This wasn't the first time she'd spent time in a hospital. The last time was when her mother was dying of cancer. There, she'd been in the daytime, with her whole family clustered around, and everything had been bright and frenetic. She'd hated it.

But to tell the truth, except for living with the constant fear Darcy wouldn't open her eyes, she liked being in the hospital now. Late at night, it was peaceful, and she could hear herself think. It had a sacred feeling, more than any of the churches her uncle and aunt had tried to force her to go to. (They'd never approved of her dad marrying a Jewish woman.) Sometimes there was company there: a nurse, a plain and unexceptional middle aged woman, who sometimes walked into the room. She smiled at Jane every time she entered and nodded when she left. They never spoke, and Jane never knew her name, but her presence meant everything in the world to her in that lonely time. And somehow, she felt as if her mother was there with them too That was when Jane started thinking seriously about becoming a nurse herself.

From one point of view, Jane knew what she was doing with her life as soon as she stood by her mother's bedside as she died of cancer, felt the anger rush through her and the desire to keep her safe and protect her. From another, she figured it out when she was staying with Darcy in the hospital. From still another, it wasn't until her second semester or so of college. She'd still taken a few courses in astronomy to hedge her bets. But work load meant it had to come down to one or another, and the astronomy professor had been a jerk and she'd heard things about him going after his students, so nursing it was. (Though she still kept up amateur astronomy sometimes, even to this day.)

Darcy had made it through, and come back as strong as ever, and they'd stayed close friends up to the end of high school. She would proudly say that Jane had saved her life. But the workload that swamped Jane's college life did what the accident couldn't. Busy with medical school, she'd fallen back into her tendency to disappear and fade away, and never had another close friend until Donald Blake... and that was a whole other can of worms. The fallout from that took up most of her life, in one way or another, for years afterwards. Meanwhile, Darcy had her own things going, and Jane was sure someone like her, vibrant, intelligent, charismatic would just see someone like Jane as a dead weight. But they'd gotten back in touch over the internet when Jane fought her long battle with cancer, and she realized she didn't want to die without getting in touch with Darcy again. They'd talked a fair bit, Darcy had done a lot to support her, but they'd never had a chance to meet up in person until today. 

Jane felt an electricity running through her skin, thinking about her, something that made her feel happy and effervescent and alive. The love and longing and devotion she had felt in the old days had gone under the surface but never faded away. Jane hoped her feelings would have cooled a little, but as soon as she'd seen her in the coffee shop they'd come flaring right back to life, as strong as they ever were.

She sat down on her chair and tried to forget about superheroes and hospital stress and feelings for a while, losing herself as a book. But the book she was reading was Pride and Prejudice, which she reread every year, and every time she saw the name "Darcy" she thought of her.

There was a knock in the door. Jane felt a flare of anger and frustration as she wondered what it was–someone from the hospital? A fellow superhero or an Asgardian? A downstairs neighbor complaining about the noise her hammer made? 

It was Darcy. "Hiiii," said Darcy. "Uh, so. They raised the rent in my apartment and I can't renew my lease. I just found that out like half an hour ago. Can I stay with you for a while? Pleasepleaseplease?" Darcy looked at her with puppy dog eyes.

"Uh," Jane said, "a little bit of advance notice would have been nice... but sure." She put her hand on her friend's shoulder and led her into the apartment.

"Yeah, I maybe shoulda asked. Sorry about that."

"No, no, you can totally stay, Dar. Just uh... I might have to leave at unpredictable hours and be gone for a long time. You know how it is."

"Oh yeah, totally," said Darcy. "So..." She instantly made her way to Jane's couch and flopped down on it. "Do you want to watch Pop Team Epic?"

"What's that?"

"It's an anime. It's–I can't really explain it, you kind of have to experience it."

They sat down huddled together on the couch, Darcy logged Jane's Roku into her crunchyroll account–of course she had a crunchyroll account–and they watched some episodes together. Jane got maybe a third of it, but she enjoyed that Darcy was enjoying it.

"Uh," said Jane, after they got through the Earth, Wind and Fire homage, "this is kind of getting a bit much. Can we watch something else?"

"Sure, sure," said Darcy. "Here, I think you'll like this one." She put on a show called A Place Further than the Universe, about some girls who travel to Antarctica. It was sweet and thoughtful and Jane did like it. But she couldn't quite keep Thor out of her head. That's right near where I got into a fight with the president of Roxxon Oil after he turned into a minotaur, she thought at one point.

At some point, they started dozing off, and Darcy's arm crept around Jane's shoulder. Now there they were, watching anime together sprawled out on the couch, just like the old days. Darcy had nodded off to sleep, resting her head on Jane's shoulder. Jane was painfully aware of the whole thing–aware of the warm weight of Darcy's body pressing on her like a cat, her hand entwined in Jane's. It was wonderful. And it made her feel sad and angry and lost because she didn't know how to deal with her feelings.

There was nothing stronger than the love a teenage girl had for her best friend she'd told herself in those days. Even the love of boys, looming so large at the time, fades away by comparison. That was how she'd thought of it back then. But now, she knew–Thor had no problem expressing her interest in women. And if Thor was part of her... What did that mean about Darcy, and how she'd felt about her?

Of course. Of course it hadn't just been jealousy over her own flat-as-a-board chest that had made Jane think so often about Darcy's boobs. She understood now, from the point of view of everything she'd been through since. She wanted Darcy like she hadn't wanted anyone in ages. She'd loved her then and she loved her now. Damn it.

But was it right to have Darcy in her life even as a friend? There was a reason why Jane had never had a roommate after the one who'd turned out to be a would be world conqueror from outer space. Why even though she was kind to people around her and did her best to support them, she never had a lot of close friends she talked to off work. Her life as a friend of superheroes–let alone an actual superhero–put her in constant danger. As someone who'd once been in love with Thor, she knew what that meant. And she didn't want to make anyone live through what she had.

A loud noise–not loud enough to wake up Darcy, who was sleeping like a log–split her thoughts. Oh hell, she thought. Just what I needed. The hero alert. Well, at least that'd give her a chance to distract herself from her feelings. She sadly, pushed Darcy away–she hated getting up and pushing cats off her lap too–and paged through the messages.

Her heart stopped. From the tweets and photos the hero alert had gathered, the creature she'd fought was on the loose again. Jane suspected it was powered by fear. It must have looked into her heart and seen one of her greatest fears.

It was attacking the hospital.

Jane didn't want to wake up Darcy, so she stepped onto the street, making sure no one else was around, and pressed the app button.

Time to get to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The seed of this story came to me back when I was reading the Silver Age Lee/Kirby Thor run for the first time. In general, Jane in the Silver Age had a pretty rough time of it, bearing the brunt of that era's sexism even worse than many of her sisters in early Marvel. She was mainly defined at first by pining after Don Blake, constantly getting caught up in a damsel in distress role and being cockblocked by Odin. Her story ended for a time when she faced an ordeal to become a goddess so she could marry Thor and failed. How had she gone from there to someone who could pick up the hammer and become Thor herself? I decided to write a story about that. I wanted to take Jane's history throughout the comics and weave it into a coherent narrative–as much of it as possible, the good, the bad, and the really weird. I wanted to explore why she had the passivity she did in the Silver Age, rather than just taking that as the default for the Stan Lee romance heroine type, and how she grew past that and found her own strength.
> 
> And of course, I wanted to make it gay–which is where Darcy comes in (heh). Throughout this story, I've used elements of the movies and tried to reconcile them as much as I can, but it's based on the very particular history of the comics. Like Jane, the version of Darcy who appears here is meant to be both similar and different from the movie one. Like Jane, she has a different academic specialty. (The movie Darcy was a political science student.) I needed a character who was knowledgeable about the history of Norse religion and figured I'd use her.
> 
> Jane Foster's childhood background was mostly original to this story. Her mother dying of cancer was mentioned in the pre-SW part of Jason Aaron's run.
> 
>  _"That's right near where I got into a fight with the president of Roxxon Oil"_ : in Thor #1-5 (2014).
> 
>  _"the one who'd turned out to be a world conquerer from outer space"_ : Tana Nile of the Colonizers of Rigel, who moved in with Jane in Thor v1 #129 and revealed her true self in #131.


	2. Blake

Thor hurtled through the air to the hospital, anger flashing like thunder in her heart. The anger that was constant and diffuse in her as Jane was fierce and focused now. She was ready to face the thing that had slipped through her fingers earlier and take it down once and for all.

But all her emotions were stirred up after Jane had met Darcy earlier, and after her fight with the creature. As she flew to the hospital, she found herself drawn back to the days she first set foot there, the days when she was simply Jane Foster, novice nurse, adrift in her life, lost in her work, and hopelessly in love with a man called Donald Blake.

The first years of her life as a nurse were intensely lonely. She'd largely cut ties with her family and even drifted away from her father. He sent money--even when he couldn't afford to--but seldom talked to her, as neither of them had any time. He died of a heart attack when she was a few years into university. But the truth was he'd already died when his wife had.

Jane had also lost track with Darcy and the handful of other friends she made in college, none of them very close, through no fault of her own. Working as nurse is stressful, exacting, and all-consuming. The long hours and the stress took a toll on her, especially her ability to have a life outside of work. It was exhausting because of how much work she had to do and how much of it was taken for granted.

The only real conversations she had were with patients, and those were a mixed blessing. Either they got better and went on with their lives, or they died. The worst thing was being with people when they died, constantly, and knowing there's only so much you can do. She learned, intellectually at least, that death was simply a part of life and sometimes all you could do was help someone die the best they could, that shepherding people through the end was one of the most important, and even beautiful, parts of her job. It still wasn't easy to live with, and never would be, and in those days it left her drained and vulnerable. Some days she didn't even feel like a person anymore. She couldn't even enjoy reading. She knew other people were shouldering the same burdens, but there was no one at work she felts he could connect with or trust.

And then she met Dr. Donald Blake. He was a thin, angelic, wispy blonde man, who reminded her oddly of a dying child in a Victorian novel. He was pretty—not handsome, pretty. He had a limp and used a walking stick to get around; she always knew he was there from his telltale tapping. He was shy and retiring and even though he was reasonably prominent and well-paid, people passed him by all the time without even noticing he was there. But something stood out about him to Jane, even though she couldn't say what it was.

He gave his job of helping people his all and then some. While other people dropped all their work onto Jane, Dr. Blake did the work of at least three people, and Jane had to push him to delegate. He was quiet and kind and compassionate. He had a way with children and an ability to keep his head in the most stressful of times. There was a vein of courage buried deep within him like gold under a mountain. So she started to talk to him, striking up halting conversations with him at work, and they developed a passionate, awkward bond. He and Jane were both people who kept to themselves and were often off in their own heads, and they stumbled into a close friendship, which they both wished could become love but were deathly afraid to say so.

Jane found herself taking care of him outside of work. She came over to his apartment and helped him clean things up and cooked meals for him—something she never had energy to do for herself. She knew she was skating on thin ice—that she had to maintain the boundaries between her work, her emotional life and relationships with her colleagues—but whenever she was around him, those boundaries just weren't there.

She spent much of her time alone daydreaming about marrying him and the life they could have together. For many women, the domestic life was a prison. For Jane, with her troubled, conflicted, grief-riven household, it had long been an ideal that was out of reach. It didn't hurt, too, that Don Blake seemed to be rich, that if she married him Jane could leave her difficult and exacting work behind and sit down and read books all day. Her work was deeply important to her, but it would be nice to have a choice. She thought of their marriage with an almost religious ecstasy. Perhaps on some level she always knew the truth.

Donald Blake was kind, and noticed and looked after her as no one else did, and yet he always kept a careful distance. Jane found herself resenting him for it. She knew she should be thankful—she knew he was her boss and it would be wrong of him to take advantage of that, and it would be wrong of her to ask him to. And yet. The longing was still there, and it passed through her and thrilled her every day. Sometimes it was excruciating; other times it was a relief to feel anything at all. She later learned that part of the reason he never got as close to Jane as he wanted was he was ashamed of his disability, which he saw as a weakness, but Jane never did.

One day Donald Blake packed up with no warning for a vacation to Norway. He'd never said why, but she assumed it must be to visit his family. He never talked about them or any of his life outside the hospital. It was almost as if he'd sprung out of the earth with no parents and no past.

When he came back from Norway, something had changed in him. He seemed more confident and yet more hesitant at the same time, as if he was keeping a wonderful secret. Once reliable as clockwork, he started missing appointments. Jane wondered at first, with dread, if he'd fallen in love there, but it was nothing that simple.

After this point, the formerly sedate Dr. Blake started going all kinds of strange things, like travelling across the world for humanitarian efforts, or even consulting on the creation of a humanoid robot. When he went to South America to help in the aftermath of a civil war, Jane insisted on coming along. War planes fired on the ship, and she again knew she was caught up in violence she was powerless to stop. She didn't know if the planes were from the supposed enemies of democracy or sent by America itself. It made little difference to her. She felt, once again, as if she was a child by her mother's bedside, only there were far more lives at stake now.

But then, a strange figure in a red cape and an honest-to-gods winged Viking helmet straight out of an old Wagner production flew down through the sky. He knocked down the war planes with a hammer. For too long people had suffered powerless through wars and massacres and bombings, and here was a man who could take on the might of the modern military with nothing but a hammer and win. Everyone went away relieved for their lives, and the strange, uneasy feeling, the combination of terror and wonder, knowing that the world had been irrevocably changed.

There were already superheroes in the world again. Not long ago the crew of a failed space expedition had been mutated by cosmic radiation into superbeing—one of them had even become a new Human Torch—and the world held its breath, unsure what they were. At first they seemed like monsters, but in time, with their new uniforms and headquarters and their shining new technology, they had become celebrities among other celebrities. The Fantastic Four were a source of safety in a comfort where it now seemed aliens were coming down from the sky every week. Before long, Namor the Sub-Mariner himself rose up as if out of oceans of memory to challenge the new Human Torch as he had the old one. Not long after, another man was mutated by radiation to become a great green giant called the Hulk.

But this man was different. In a sense, none of the superheroes quite felt like superheroes. The Fantastic Four were just people who had been transformed, like old b-movies that showed on MST3K. The Hulk was a monster, a giant out of myth, or another one of those B-movies, or a child's imagination. Namor was Namor. But this man...

This man was a superhero, and he was something more. He almost seemed like a god.

In fact, it soon emerged that this was Thor, the god of thunder. And he was not the only god who had returned to the world. Loki, god of lies and mischief, soon awoke as well. They had been imprisoned within a tree, condemned to stay there until someone shed a tear for them. Through their magic, they summoned a wind which blew away a leaf which irritated the eyes of Heimdall, and thus they escaped. After Loki came a whole parade of enemies from Earth and Asgard and other realms--Zarrko the Tomorrow Man, the Cobra and Mr. Hyde, the Enchantress and the Executioner. Jane was often caught up in the battles between them. She was always getting captured or tied up or hypnotized or sent to Limbo by whatever was rampaging across the world this week, but the other side of these horrors was that she knew she would always be rescued by Thor. That was the part of her life she looked forward to the most.

These battles were elementally terrifying, but also awe-inspiring, even beautiful, especially with Thor there. They were a kind of religious experience. She'd met other people who described superhero fights that way too. That was why people clustered and gawked around them even though they knew their lives were at risk.

In those days, Jane both feared Thor's presence in her life and longed for it, knowing that it would always be accompanied by danger and terror. She even found herself resenting Donald Blake for a moment or two because he was not Thor, but then immediately felt guilty for it. There were now two men who took up her imagination--Donald Blake and Thor. Her mind was always going back and forth between dreaming about one and the other, but in her heart she always knew they were the same.

With this third unspoken presence hanging over both their lives, the relationship of Donald Blake and Jane Foster, once an island of stability and safety, became tempestuous and conflicted. Everyone starts out their lives being buffeted by intense emotions, like a never-ending storm. Most people grow out of it, or at least learn to meditate it. As they grow older they gain a sense of proportion, a way to moderate these emotions. Some people never do. These are the people who have lost much or suffered much, and many such people become superheroes or the friends and lovers of superheroes. In that early, primal, volcanic age of superheroes, when no one quite knew what they were doing, emotions and tempers were always running high. Thus it was that one day Jane Foster found herself walking out on a friend and colleague she cared for deeply because she couldn't handle all the things she was feeling, the good emotions as well as the bad.

She tried to escape the love that gripped her heart. She even tried dating other men--putting herself more into dating than she ever had before--but her thoughts always wandered back to Blake and Thor. She could feel there was something keeping a distance between them but couldn't name it.

What she didn't know at the time was there one specific man making her life miserable and that was Odin, father of gods and mortals of Thor in particular, whose edict lay between them, for he would not let his son marry a mortal woman. Jane was always getting caught in the middle of Thor's conflicts, and the first was his conflict with Odin. They had been clashing for years now--or decades, or centuries--and Odin had cast down Thor and imprisoned him in the form of a mortal who would not be seen by the world as strong or heroic, to teach him a lesson in humility. Thor seemed to think this was just, but Jane suspected that Odin could have used a lesson in humility himself. It also seemed strange that Odin had sent Thor down to live as a mortal but wouldn't let him love a mortal. Odin wanted him to be close to mortals, it would seem, but not too close. He could not compromise his godly power or render himself vulnerable. When it became clear nothing could make Thor let go of this idea, Odin had offered him his blessing if Jane proved worthy of godhood, a carrot which he would hold eternally out of reach.

Among the gods, Odin was venerated for his wisdom and Jane could believe it, though she hadn't experienced much of it herself. There was something Darcy had said when she was drunk once early in college that had stuck with Jane throughout her life. Gods embodied both the best and the worst in us, amplified to divine proportions. This also explained why in the Tanakh, the Lord was so often temperamental and petty. And it also might have explained the Christian history of bloodshed: that it came from the refusal to face up to those negative aspects of their God. Belief in a pure god made them try to bring about that purity in the world and in themselves, which led only to more violence. She'd struggled to reconcile the deep wisdom that existed within Odin, as she learned his sayings and became part of the community of Asgard, with his pettiness and cruelty. But the same was true of many people, especially men, who she knew in Midgard. Maybe gods and mortals weren't so different after all.

And so, with constant terror and frustration hanging over her from the violence that followed Thor and the edicts of Odin, she tried to split with Blake—and Thor, who she instinctively knew was linked to him—and work for another doctor. But even when even when left Thor behind, the terror would not stay out of her life for long. The other doctor was was captured by the Cobra and Jane found herself trapped with him in a lab, as usual. When Jane saw Thor flying by the window, she worked her courage up to the utmost and flung a beaker out the window. She was sure this would be the end of it, but Thor rescued her just in time, as he always did. She went back to work with Don Blake with a tremendous sense of relief. She didn't notice for quite some time the fact that she'd put her own life at risk to help Thor fight a foe.

It didn't always go so well for her. Once, she helped Mr. Hyde escape Thor because she believed he'd kill Donald Blake otherwise, not fully knowing yet they were the same person. When you were constantly in life or death situations—which Jane was, even outside of the world of heroes—you had to make snap judgment calls based on limited information and they wouldn't always be the right call, and you had to live with that. But the guilt stuck with her a long time.

The worst time was when Thor found himself pulled away from her more and more due to troubles in Asgard, and Jane found herself without both him and Blake. She never knew anymore when or if he'd be there. She was kidnapped by a reporter who wanted to blackmail Thor into bringing him to Asgard, who'd picked up on the connection between them. She was locked up in his apartment while Thor faced the Destroyer and the Absorbing Man. She tried to set a fire to escape and wound up hospitalized for smoke inhalation. Dr. Blake came to her bedside, and delirious and scared, she poured out all her love and longing and frustration and begged him to come clean. That was when, in defiance of his father's will, he brought down his hammer and revealed himself as Thor.

That surprised her, and yet it did not. She had loved Donald Blake for his hidden strength, just as she had loved Thor for his hidden kindness. The reason Blake had seemed to insubstantial and his background so mysterious was that he was simply a mask for Thor, created by a spell.

Jane made Thor promised he would never leave her, and Thor offered her godhood. Jane gladly accepted, feeling there was little that tied her to this life anymore. Odin even relented from his will, when in his wrath he stripped Thor of half his powers and saw him humiliated by Hercules, and quickly came to regret his treatment of his son. Jane's own feelings, of course, never entered into it. Nonetheless, there was nothing anymore keeping Jane from joining Thor in the land of the gods.

But there'd be a few more obstacles before that could be carried out. Jane had taken on a roommate named Tana Nile, a woman about whom she knew very little, who was as furtive and mysterious as Blake and like him had an aura that didn't fit with what she was supposed to be, which intrigued her. It turned out she was one of the Colonizers of Rigel, out to conquer the Earth, and had used her psychic aura of command to send Jane away to distract Thor.

She was then picked up by more nonhuman beings disguised as humans, creations of a mad scientist called the High Evolutionary who lived in a secret mountain city in central Europe and served as creator god to a new race of animal people. Jane had been called on to help teach them about the modern world. For once, she was able to go on about all the things that interested her and, rather than being mocked and belittled, received by her audience with attention and even adoration. The animal faces took some time to get used to—she felt as if she'd wandered into some cartoon or perhaps a furry convention—but she enjoyed how they looked at her with eager fascination. She enjoyed being a teacher, at least until the High Evolutionary accidentally created the Man-Beast, embodiment of all the violence he'd tried to keep from his new world, and Thor had to rescue her again. In the end, oddly enough, she thought it was worth it. It said something that even the good parts of her life back then then began with kidnapping--but how many people could say they'd helped teach a newly created species?

Once Thor had dealt in quick succession with the Colonizers of Rigel, Ego the Living Planet, and the Man-Beast, there was nothing more keeping Jane from her appointment with divinity. And so he brought her to Asgard. To the locked chamber. To the Unknown...

Enough! she thought. It was not usual for her to have such long and sustained memories of her life as Jane while she was holding the hammer. She preferred to leave Jane's life and troubles with her mortal form. All that foolishness was long, long gone. She was now herself Thor, and it was she who wielded the hammer. She would not let these thoughts and memories ensnare her, for she had a monster to slay.

Through the window she crashed, into the hospital. This was the workplace she went to every day as Jane, but both it and her were different now. There was an eerie feeling about all this, and not just because of the oddly muted lights, the noises at the edge of her hearing whose source and nature she could not name. This was the center of Jane's life, and normally Thor did not go here. 

There was no way the creature's power could match Thor's, but Thor knew she was at a disadvantage here. Facing it in the open sky was one thing. Facing it in the hospital corridors, when there were vulnerable people in the rooms around her, was something else. The prick of Jane's conscience warned Thor to be careful.

"Enough of this!" said Thor. "Know ye that I am Thor, Goddess of Thunder! I have faced gods and giants and demons and things from beyond time and space. I have made war in Battleworld when the world ended. Nothing is there that can strike down the heart of Thor with fear!"

To answer her, a half-glimpsed rippling thing struck at her shoulder. Thor whirled her hammer at it, but it hit nothing--only making a dent in the wall. From the distance came laughter like a child's.

"If you toy with me, creature" said Thor, "you shall only stir up my wrath the more."

A tentacle shot out from the shadows and gripped her by the neck. Thor, with all her might, grabbed hold of it and pulled it off, whipping the creature against the wall. Another tentacle slapped her in the side of her face and knocked her off her feet. Still it was shifting, hard to see and hard to grasp, except for those lotus-pod eyes that shone in the darkness. And then it dissolved like smoke and was gone.

Thor had to find the creature and face it, but it was like trying to grip ahold of a river. She closed her eyes and felt a jolt of anxiety hitting her, like an electric line. She felt the source of the fear and honed in on it like a compass. It led her to a small room with a woman in a hospital bed, the IV drip connected to her arm. She looked pale and withered, like a corpse, but she was still breathing. 

This was Jane's mother, and that that moment Jane was a child again, trying to hold in all her tears and terror and helplessness. She watched her mother's chest rise and fall, waiting for it to stop, as she knew she would. Then she looked closer at the gaunt and emaciated face and saw it was not her mother's. It was Jane's. This was the room she'd stayed in after her chemo.

The Jane on the hospital bed opened her eyes--the two on her face and the cluster of lotus-pod eyes in her forehead. She leaped out of the bed and with clawlike hands gripped Thor's throat, knocking her to the ground. The hammer was sent spinning out of her hand, and she couldn't reach it in time. The creature opened its mouth, full of knife-like fangs, and Jane felt it spittle drip onto her cheek. The more she struggled, the stronger its grip grew. And however hard she struggled, Thor couldn't pull herself out of it.

One would think that knowing this was a creature that feeds on fear would make one less vulnerable to it, but fear works in strange ways. When you know you're in an anxiety loop, that intellectual knowledge doesn't always help dealing with it. Fear of the mind being invaded, of anxiety closing in, was something that fed itself.

She couldn't move. She felt helpless, as if she was in a nightmare—or as if she was trapped once more in the locked chamber in Asgard, looking at the shadow on the wall—no. She had come a long way from there, and she knew she was worthy now. I am worthy, she told herself. I am worthy. But still she was frozen in terror—

Then another figure appeared in the room: a woman who was vaguely familiar, somewhere in the muddle of Jane's memories. A slim blonde woman with hair cut short, dressed in a grey casual suit, with magical and alchemical symbols tattooed on her hands and a pentagram choker adorning her neck. She raised her hands in a spell-casting gesture. "Eko Eko Azarak! Eko Eko Cyttorak!" she chanted, and crimson bolts hit the creature and slammed it against the wall. Thor grabbed ahold of her hammer and pulled herself up, and the creature did as well. With two enemies now, it seemed less sure on its footing. It shifted back to what must have been its true form--something like an alligator mixed with a horned toad, with purple leathery-scaly hide that flowed and rippled. 

"Now it is you who will learn to fear my hammer!" said Thor, and struck it once more on the eyes, while the stranger cast a red force bubble around it. It howled and screeched and struggled against its walls but the bubble hold it fast.

"OK," said the other woman, "I got it bagged and tagged. You don't have anything to worry about anymore. Thanks for your help, by the way. It would've been a lot harder to take down that thing if you weren't around to draw its fire."

Thor was frustrated she'd needed this young sorceress to pull her fat out of the fire, but she was not unattractive, so that made it easier to deal with. "And who would you be?" said Thor.

"Jennifer Kale," she said. "I'm a witch. I used to run with Man-Thing--maybe you've heard of me."

Thor nodded. "I am honored to fight beside you, Jennifer Kale." The witch blushed just a little, which was pleasing to Thor. "Know you anything about this creature? What is it and who made it?"

"Well," said Jennifer Kale, "I don't know, but the people I work for might. I'm taking this thing over to Project Gorgon," say Jennifer Kale. "It's a secret branch of Project Pegasus which exists to study magic. I shouldn't have told you about it, sorry."

"I won't tell a soul." Jennifer Kale rose up into the air and Thor followed after, and thrust the lingering doubts and fears from her mind. They flew through the night air to the outskirts of Chicago, touching down at a small, dilapidated building which was the entrance to a massive underground bunker. The power-armored guards drew back, surprised to see an actual goddess walking among them. Jennifer Kale led Thor down through a dizzying succession of elevators to a room where a series of strange beings were kept in tanks. Watching over them was a tall black woman. She wore a seamlessly cleaned professional lab coat rather than the infamous silver bikini and diadem, but with her star earrings, she was instantly recognizable--Dr. Tilda Johnson, sometimes called Nightshade, Queen of the Werewolves.

Dr. Tilda Johnson was one of those people who was always tightrope-walking the line between hero and villain. In the Civil War, she'd been one of the handful of villains who'd turned down the Thunderbolts and actually sided with the anti-registration heroes. Her relations with Captain America had not been good; she'd turned him into a werewolf, in fact. But she hated the registration act more than him. Their values were very different, but they both were people who planted themselves like trees of truth beside their particular rivers, who followed their own path rather than what was expected of them. Night Nurse had said that Jane would trust her if need be, but she should watch her like a hawk. Jane had a feeling there was a good deal of water under that particular bridge.

"Agent Kale," said Dr. Johnson, "did you let someone in on the organization without permission?"

"Ah, well..." said Jennifer Kale.

Dr. Johnson shrugged. "Don't let Drumm know. So, you're the new Thor." She regarded Thor coolly.

"Aye, so I am."

At Dr. Johnson's direction, Jennifer Kale placed the creature in a stasis pod. Turning and twisting dials, Dr. Johnson let in gases which froze the creature, and it shifted into the form of a human being--a young white boy with a scraggly beard, still howling and screaming.

"That was a human?" said Thor.

"I'm afraid so," said Dr. Johnson. "We're putting down an outbreak of these creatures all over the country. They're originally nonpowered human beings, transformed by magical energy--young people in desperate circumstances, mostly white men. They take their power from fear, and they're supernatural in nature, but no one knows who and where they came from. Some of the thaumic energy signature might be Olympian, but it's hard to tell for sure."

Thor nodded. "I shall speak to my fellow Asgardians of this. If there's a battle of the gods to be fought, Thor will not hesitate to join."

"Well, some things never change," said Dr. Johnson. She smiled knowingly. "If you ever see Claire again, tell her I said hello."

Claire--that was Night Nurse's name, though practically no one ever called her that. "How do you know I know her?" said Thor.

"Just an educated guess. Good luck, Thor. May whatever power watches over gods be with you."

Thor left Project Gorgon's headquarters heavy with thoughts. How much did Dr. Johnson--Nightshade--know about her, anyway? And given how much she'd fought the government in the past, why was she working with them now? She was one of those people who always had her own reasons for doing things, and Thor would leave it to those more closely linked with her to figure that out. She had her hands full with Loki.

Her mind drifted back to the creature, and she knew suddenly why she felt so vulnerable, so enmeshed in the nets of her past. The feeling she knew when she looked into the creature's eyes was a familiar one. She'd felt it in her first trial to become a goddess, the one she failed, when she faced the Lurking Unknown.

She stood atop a pinnacle near Mount Wundagore, held in Thor's arms, and reassured him she would fear nothing by his side. With a whirl of the hammer he took her into another world, the storm of time and space howling around her. This was how Dorothy must have felt when the tornado yanked her home out of the earth.

When she opened her eyes, she was assaulted by a burst of strange colors, sounds, and scents. Everything was so much brighter and louder than she could have imagined back home. "Be not afraid," she told herself inwardly. That was what you were supposed to say in the presence of angels and gods. 

There were the stars shining all around her, the impossibly bright light of the Rainbow Bridge, the spires and mountains of Asgard looming in the distance. She saw the army of Asgard marching home from a battle, in glorious resplendent armor and so many strange helmets, weapons clanking and hooves stomping. She saw a real live troll carried on poles like an animal brought back from a hunt, gnashing its grindstone teeth at her. 

It was everything she had read about, everything she had dreamed of, but it was real and she was there.

Thor held onto her, reassured her through all her terror and awe, and brought her into the presence of his father. Odin came and took her hand, seeming kind. He lifted up a strange scepter and shot a burst of light into Jane. When the light faded, she was clad in the rainment of a goddess. With a wave of a hand he gave her the gift of flight. She leaped up into the air, wonderful, exultant, yet panic hit her as soon as she left the ground. As a child, she had often dreamed of flying like a bird, yet like love, it was quite a different thing in reality. She feared losing her grip on flight and falling to the earth, and in that moment her fear became true. Thor grabbed ahold of her just in time, exhorting her to leave behind her mortal fears. 

She knew she had disappointed Odin, but he declared the test was not over yet. He led her and Thor to a dark chamber where something was kept that was called "the Unknown." His servant was sent forth to summon it by striking the enchanted tuning fork. The moment he hit it, he was struck as if dead by fear and had to be carried away.

Jane was brought into the chamber, and Thor placed his hand on her shoulder one last time and reassured her he would be near and her own powers could aid against it. The huge, heavy iron door was slammed shut behind her and Jane was alone in darkness.

But she was not truly alone. There was something she could feel but couldn't see. She could hear and feel its ragged breathing and see its shadow, a greater darkness within the dark. A hand loomed up at her, and then her heart was pierced by fear—not merely fear of the monster but all her fears at once. In the shadows she saw her father, collapsing on the ground while his family stood over him and laughed. She saw Darcy hit by the car, falling into the ocean. She saw her patients, dying one after another, crying out to her for help she could never give. She saw herself, isolated and cut off from everyone she loved, alone. Alone. 

She cried out Thor's name, desperate for the touch of his hand, anything that would make her feel safe. He charged into the room and struck at the half-seen creature with his hammer, and Jane ran out of the room and collapsed to the floor, a sobbing mess. 

Once before she'd failed a test. In college, over-stressed from cramming, she'd flunked her first nursing exam, and lay down in her room and cried for days. Her professor had talked with her and given her another chance, but she knew she would have no other chance now. The judgments of Odin were final.

He declared the Unknown feeds on fear, which is why it could never invade the realm of the gods, because they do not know fear. She could hear Thor, her Thor, arguing for her in the background, exhorting Odin that there should be a place in Asgard for someone kind and gentle like Jane, but Jane wanted nothing more to do with Asgard. She wanted to be among mortals and feel her feet on the ground. With a wave of his hand, Odin carried this out, and Jane flew through the realms like a meteor and landed back on Earth.

She came to in a hospital somewhere on the West Coast, as if awakening from a dream. She couldn't fully remember how she got there, and much of her life was a blur. Another nurse came to her, saying she was the new resident nurse, and brought her to her new boss—a pretty, wispy blonde man, Dr. Keith Kincaid. When she saw him, she was suddenly content and secure, as if she'd truly come home.

In the ensuing days, sometimes she would cry, feeling like she'd lost something she couldn't name. But in the whirl of work and new romance, that feeling passed quickly.

Thor had found someone else too. He'd gone to face the escaped Unknown, and, distraught himself, almost fell before it. But he was rescued by the his first great love, the warrior goddess Sif. The two of them renewed their bond. For both Thor and Jane, life went on.

Yet Jane could not forget forever. She began to remember, in vague, general terms, when she went to a circus on a date and saw Thor there. (It was a long story, involving the Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime.) It wasn't Dr. Kincaid who was with her. She'd been too nervous to approach him, and had been picked up by another man, one Dr. Jim North. He was another handsome doctor--they were much the same.

Not long after, she was kidnapped one last time, by a ruthless billionaire named Kronin Krask who'd wanted Doctor North's help repairing a mind-transfer machine. He knew that she'd once been close to Thor, and hoped to bring him here to steal his body. Thor had come, and it had not gone according to Krask's plan. Thor summarily rescued Jane and bid her new boyfriend good luck. He couldn't even look at her. "And so--farewell! Thou hast each other, no more is needed," he said, and that was that.

It wasn't long after that that Jim North broke up with her. He couldn't handle a small piece of the reality that Jane had lived week after week. No doubt she had lasted longer against the Unknown than he would have.

Yet that first trial and failure still stung in her mind after all these years, and even now that she was a goddess in truth, sometimes she was afraid that this was all an illusion and she was still trapped in the chamber of the Lurking Unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _the creation of a humanoid robot_ : Journey into Mystery #95, which originally said that Blake created the robot himself, since in the Silver Age if you're an expert on one thing, you're an expert on everything.
> 
>  _When he went to South America to help in the aftermath of a civil war_ : Journey into Mystery #84, Jane's first appearance and Thor's second. Originally this story was straight up Cold War propaganda (like a lot of early Marvel stories), I've modified it a bit to be more ambiguous.
> 
>  _Before long, Namor the Sub-Mariner himself rose up as if out of oceans of memory to challenge the new Human Torch as he had the old one_ : Namor fought the Golden Age Human Torch a couple times, starting in Marvel Mystery Comics #8—Marvel's first crossover—and returned in Fantastic Four #4.
> 
>  _Loki, god of lies and mischief, soon awoke as well_ : In JiM #85
> 
>  _Jane Foster found herself walking out_ : Jane's first breakup with Don Blake was in JiM #97, which is where the "Odin won't let Thor reveal himself to Jane" plot started. This was when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby became full-time creators for the series, moving from simple superhero adventures scripted by other writer to the kind of soap opera drama Stan favored.
> 
>  _to teach him a lesson in humility_ : Don Blake's origin was revealed after the fact in Thor v1 #159. Elements of this were used in the first movie, including a brief homage to the Don Blake identity. 
> 
> _captured by the Cobra_ : JiM #98
> 
>  _Once, she helped Mr. Hyde escape_ : JiM #100
> 
>  _while Thor faced the Destroyer and the Absorbing Man_ : in JiM #118-123. Thor revealed his identity to Jane at long last in #124.
> 
>  _he stripped Thor of half his powers and saw him humiliated by Hercules_ : the saga of Thor's battle with Hercules and their joining together to face Pluto was in JiM #123-124 and Thor #126-130
> 
>  _Tana Nile_ : As noted last chapter, she was intordued in #129, leading into Thor's battle with Ego the Living Planet in #131-133
> 
>  _the High Evolutionary_ Introduced in Thor #134-135, the High Evolutionary would become the center of some of the Marvel Universe's densest and weirdest continuity. For more information, listen to [Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men episode 96](https://www.xplainthexmen.com/2016/02/96-horsemen-of-the-playground/).
> 
>  _Jennifer Kale_ : Her design here is a fashionable queer-ish version of Gregg Smallwood's redesign from his unofficial Midnight Sons proposal, which sadly seems to have vanished from the internet.
> 
>  _Nightshade_ : Nightshade first battled Captain America in Captain America and the Falcon #164, where she turned Falcon into a werewolf, she did the same to Cap in the infamous "Capwolf" storyline in Captain America #402-407. her role in Civil War is a retcon, partially inspired by her role in the post-Secret Wars Nighthawk. This is one of the few post-SW series I'm willing to let in as canon, so Nightshade is currently working with him as well, working both sides of the fence. That's part of why I put Project Gorgon in Chicago.
> 
>  _Night Nurse_ : I've merged Claire Temple from the TV show into the comics character here, as that makes her more interesting. Originally Claire Temple was the name of a different comics character; I guess they're cousins or something like old Wally West and new Wally West.
> 
>  _Project Gorgon_ : I'd realized the main plot of this story was a Hellboy plot, since I'd been reading a bunch of Hellboy/BPRD earlier (as is usual for me it's a Doctor Who plot and a Sailor Moon plot also), so I decided to bring in a loose Marvel equivalent of the BPRD. Besides the ones we see here, other members include the briefly-mentioned Jericho Drumm, Aka Brother/Doctor Voodoo; Jack Russell, the Werewolf by Night (yes, that's his name); and Marrina, Namor's ex-wife (who's now become a gillperson). I'll probably write more about them later.
> 
>  _the Lurking Unknown_ : Jane faced the ordeal to become a goddess in Thor #136, her last regular appearance in the Silver Age. By this point, Jack Kirby was assuming more creative control over the series, and it was leaving behind its original soap-operatic plots towards stories of cosmic adventure and moments of Thor interacting as a god with human beings; Don Blake's role was more and more rudimentary. With this issue, the series cut its last ties to the original status quo.
> 
>  _(It was a long story, involving the Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime.)_ : Thor #146, when Thor had lost his powers after Odin had had yet another temper tantrum, and been hypnotized by the Ringmaster.
> 
>  _Jim North_ : Marvel wikia assumes he's the same character as Dr. Keith Kincaid and Stan was just confused again like when he called Spider-Man "Super-Man" that one time, but I saw no reason to assume that here.
> 
>  _Kronin Krask_ : in Thor #172


	3. Sif

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: attempted suicde and mention of sexual harrassment

Jane flew home and, when she transformed back, immediately collapsed on the bed. She woke to the sound of things being pushed and shuffled around. When she pulled herself out of bed and rubbed her eyes, she found piles of stuff scattered all over the floor. There were vinyl records stacked up against the walls, and stacks and stacks of books. It was Darcy's, which she was bringing in in with the help of some friends. Jane was mortified to have company over while she was still in her pajamas, but none of them seemed to particularly care or notice.

"Oh hi," said Darcy, "I'm moving my stuff in. How was work?"

Jane shrugged. "Like usual. Wow, that's, um, a lot of books." Between the two of them, they had enough books to fill a library.

"Yeah, I probably could use to watch that Marie Kondo thing... What can I say, I'm a work in progress." Darcy shrugged.

"Uh, you'll let me know if you bring people over in the future, right?"

"Don't worry," said Darcy, "I won't bring in any parties. I kinda hate them myself. I like being around people but I hate parties, y'know?"

"Do you have any weed?" said someone with green hair who was semi-passed out on the couch.

"No," said Jane, "but I have, uh, mead." She took the bottle of mead out of her fridge and poured some into her glasses, handing it around to Darcy and her friends. They each took a sip of it and at first frowned, then found themselves drinking it more and more quickly. They were hit by the effervescent rush and started giggling.

"Janey! Jane, where did you get this?" said Darcy. "This is the most amazing mead I've ever had. I've had a bunch of mead at ren fairs and crap, and like, I had no idea how people actually drank it. But this is actually good. Where's it from?"

From the halls of Asgard, brewed by Kvasir himself. "From a craft brewery in Broxton."

"That's so amazing, you gotta show that to me sometime." She braced herself agianst the wall, reading to keel over. She'd had one glass. "Gosh, Jane, you're so pretty." Darcy stared at her while wobbling.

"Awww. You look really good too." Jane giggled. "You need to lie down?"

"Yeah, probably. I uh, just remembered I haven't actually slept for a whole day."

Jane led Darcy over to her bed and laid her out. "I'm gonna have to run, Darcy. I gotta take care of some business with my landlord," she said, which was true enough. "See you later."

Jane slammed the door shut and hastily put on some clothes, then pulled out her phone and wrote a text message.

To: Landlord  
I need to meet you at central park right now, an issue's come up. It's urgent.

(Jane was the kind of person who always correctly spelled and punctuated her texts.)

The response came quickly  
meet me at the bench! i'll be there in a second ;)

She never liked it when they used that emoticon.

Feeling dirty and grimy without a shower, she left the house and made her way to central park through the subway. It was spring now; the flowers were in bloom and the frogs were making their voices heard. Somewhere out there was the tribe of frogs that Thor Odinson had met after he'd been transformed into one.

She found the bench the two of them had designated as their meeting place, and there they were, feeding the pigeons. Their bright green eyes darted around quickly. They had a kind of elongated face, not what many people would consider attractive in and of itself, but there was something compelling about them. They wore iridescent green lipstick, something they often did now even when presenting as male. They were wearing a green coat and a green scarf with gold trim, which made them look a bit Doctor Who-ish—they were a tremendous fan of that show, and once claimed they had all the missing episodes but could never release them because it would destroy the universe. When a female Doctor had been announced, their reaction had been, "Well that's good to know—but I was first."

"Hello Loki," said Jane.

Loki had been missing for a long time after the Secret Wars, but a while ago they had returned, bearing with them many mysteries and unanswered questions, as they always did. Jane remembered well how cruel Loki had been in the past, but at the same time felt a strange affinity with them now. Both were people who were on the edges of the society of Asgard, and both had changed drastically over the last year. So she had an odd respect and even affection for Loki now, even though she hesitated to call them friend.

There was also, of course, the fact that Loki owned her apartment building. When Jane had moved back into New York, she'd wanted to live in the co-op building where she'd spent some of the best parts of her lives, but it had been taken over by a shady real estate company—as if there were a non-shady one—and set to be demolished. Loki had beaten its owner in a game of cards and won the building in exchange. They'd taken it over and lowered the rent, and Jane was allowed to stay there for free. Jane still wasn't sure why Loki had done this—perhaps they just wanted to make sure that Asgard's new defender owed them something, now that that role no longer belonged to their brother.

"Ah!" they said. "So what is it this time?"

Jane explained the whole context as best she could. Loki nodded. "This sounds like the work of one of the Fear Lords," Loki said. "They're a circle of divinities, powers and principalities who draw power from fear. Naturally. I've had altercations with them in the past. But which one, I wonder? D'spayre? Nightmare? Kkallakku?"

"Beats me," said Jane. "But Nightshade said something about the power being Olympian..."

"Ah, I see," said Loki. "Well, I definitely have some theories, but I'd like to make sure of them. Luckily, there is one of the Fear Lords who is on the side of humanity—the Straw Man. I can try and call them up. The best place to do so is a place with a lot of farms nearby, and a strong connection to the gods..."

Jane nodded. She knew exactly what they meant. "Let's get going," she said, and pressed the button on her phone. The thunder struck down. Jane was Thor now, and Loki was wearing full godly regalia, complete with horns.

As Jane abruptly shifted into Thor's perspective, the events of the day rushed through her mind and something hit her with sharp clarity. "By Odin's beard! She was flirting with me!" said Thor.

"Ah, yes," said Loki. "You and my brother really do have a lot in common. It took him a hundred years to realize Hercules was trying to get into his pants, you know." They laughed. "Speaking of which, I should send a message to him, just to be sure. And Sif."

Loki picked it up a pigeon and stroked head, cooing and chirping at it. The pigeon cooed and chirped back. Normally Loki preferred to work with magpies, but pigeons would do. The pigeon twisted off into space with the magic Loki had imbued it with. Thor remembered Odinson fighting Loki in this very park, when Loki had turned into a pigeon to hide themself from him.

The two Asgardians soared up into the air, past the people in Central Park who were gawking at them, watching the cities and the farmland fly beneath. It was oddly peaceful taking long flights through the air like this, and Thor always felt a little sorry for people in the passing jet planes, looking and pointing out the windows, who had to fly through the air in massive unwieldy things after being forced through degrading security procedures instead of feeling the air on their own skin. But once more Thor found her thoughts drifting toward the past and her life as Jane, thinking about Sif, thinking about Sif, and the impact she had on her life.

After she left Asgard, Jane's memory had been removed by Odin, but imperfectly. It came back to her in flashes, randomly and unpredictably. She often saw Thor in her dream and the terrors they had faced. She thought of the story of Sigurd, how he had been forced to drink the potion to forget Byrnhild. Reading the story as a child, she'd wondered if he'd ever felt a loss he couldn't express, if he ever had flashes of memory he couldn't attach anything to when he saw light on the water that reminded him of his lost love's hair. Because she had.

But there was Keith Kincaid, a man who looked just like her husband, who she immediately attached all her love and passion and affection to without knowing why. That love took her out of the strange sense of fogginess she often felt. And it didn't seem strange to her that parts of her life were missing because it had always felt like that.

At first, Jane didn't want to start another relationship, feeling guilty over putting Dr. North in danger because of her connection to Thor. But by then, Dr. Kincaid had taken notice of her, and soon he initiated their relationship—though he looked like Blake, he was as forceful as Blake was not. Even as husband, though, she thought of him more as Dr. Kincaid than as Keith. He had no limp, like Donald Blake did. He had never known weakness or vulnerability in his life—or that was the impression he liked to give. 

For a while, they were good together. She learned that he too was a survivor of great losses, that his parents had died in an accident when he was a teenager and he had gone to medical school after that, pushing himself to the top of the class. He seldom wanted to admit or face his loss and how it had shaped him, but Jane saw it too clearly. She wanted to reach out to him and help him too. She waited for the day he would come to terms with his pain and share it with her. It never came.

The warning signs had been there from the beginning, but mostly Jane had just been relieved to have someone who cared about her, and to have a life free of chaos and terror. She had started engaging with her work and the world around her a little more. Dr. Kincaid was pressuring her somewhat to retire and live as a housewife, but her work was deeply important to her even when she struggled with it.

Throughout it all, the memories came and went, sometimes foggy and sometimes clear. Sometimes Jane had panic attacks without knowing why—struck suddenly by fear that people around her were supervillains or gods or aliens, or by a nebulous overwhelming terror she couldn't name. But sometimes she knew exactly why.

Then one day, she accidentally locked herself into a closet and thought she saw the hands of the Lurking Unknown looming over her. She was overwhelmed by terror, by guilt at her failure, by an enormous, unspeakable sense of loss. She wanted to escape, not just the room but everything she was feeling, life itself. And so she tried to strangle herself with an extension cord.

In fact, the terror had not come from nowhere. The Dweller of Darkness was abroad, another Fear Lord like the Lurking Unknown, and people throughout the world were attempting suicide as they felt its touch. Thor and Hercules had overcome it, but there were many who had died or been brought to the brink of death. Jane had been rescued in time but the terror, guilt and panic that had overcome her was too much, and she felt her life slipping away. She felt as if she had sunk deep into the ocean and everyone around her was speaking from a far distance. Sometimes she thought she saw Thor again, and wasn't sure if it was real or imagination. It didn't matter. It would all be done soon and she would be free.

But then she saw a shining, powerful woman standing over her, reaching out her hand. This was the presence of a god, she knew, just like Thor, and just like Thor she was irresistibly drawn to her. Jane took her hand and felt the light touch her, awakening something within her she thought she had lost or never had, and suddenly she longed for life again. The light entered into her and became part of her. She still felt everything she'd felt before, but now she also felt joy and the yearning for life, and she was no longer alone.

The shining woman was Sif, warrior goddess of Asgard and first beloved of Thor. Because she loved Thor and knew how much Thor loved Jane, she would do anything to save Jane's life. While Thor was enmeshed in conflict with Loki, Sif had voyaged with Hercules to the dead, distant world of Kamo Tharnn, Possessor of the Runestaff, ragged king of a ruined kingdom, and fought him for the staff which was said to have power over life and death. She had stood beside Jane's bedside, and, chanting an alien spell, sent her own life into Jane to restore her. Thor, her Thor, was truly there standing by her bedside, but Jane almost didn't notice, because now she was consumed with sorrow for Sif, a woman who gave everything for her who she never really knew.

But it turned out SIf wasn't gone. Sif was part of her. Jane didn't just have all her own memories back, she had Sif's as well. Sometimes, when she was alone, she could feel Sif speaking to her without words. The memories came to her in dreams, as vivid as her everyday life. She learned that Sif had once been a kind and gentle goddess of nature and agriculture, who wore a crown of flowers in her hair. In time she became a warrior, but she did not cease to love farming and farmers. Because of this her sword was called Harvester. Jane, later on, would still sometimes remember random knowledge about agriculture she had gained from the mind of Sif. 

Sif was someone who lived a life of violence. She had killed people; she was good at it and it came naturally to her. This troubled Jane—once she had a nightmare about one of Sif's battles and lay on the bed sobbing for an hour afterward. And yet Sif was also loving and compassionate. She fought for the weak and vulnerable and she cared for people intensely. There were few who were more powerful in their wrath, their passion, their kindness.

It was a strange experience, living Sif's life with her. It was like reading a book except she was actually experiencing it. She often fell in love with characters in books, and on some level she fell in love with Sif too.

Through all this, she was trying to live her own life and resume her relationship with Dr. Kincaid. At first he was happy that Jane was up and about and her depression had lifted away. But being part of Sif had changed Jane. At first Sif's mind was a separate layer under her own, but soon she found more flowing between their thoughts. Jane started getting more assertive, more angry. Things that she'd brushed off, all the little ways people dismissed her and took away her autonomy, she suddenly couldn't ignore and found herself pushing back. Dr. Kincaid seemed both intrigued and repelled by Jane's new behavior. Jane had the sense that he wasn't used to the idea of a woman who could speak for herself. That he liked to see himself as kind and benevolent, but that came from the power that he naturally held over those around him, and he did not react well when someone spoke up for their own needs.

Now that Sif was part of her, Jane was feeling increasingly dissatisfied with Dr. Kincaid, and longed for Thor again. But in her heart of hearts, Sif didn't want to hurt Thor or Jane's feelings and Thor didn't want to interfere in Jane's relationship with Dr. Kincaid because he assumed that was what she wanted. And even though Jane wasn't sure she loved her fiance anymore, or even liked him, she didn't want to cause any pain for him. They were all far too noble for their own good.

Jane also found herself more and more attracted to women. Like her anger, these feelings disturbed her, and she found them unnerving and foreign, yet both had roots in her own mind as well as Sif's. She started talking with other women in her life more, and noticing people around her in general, and she had the sense that Dr. Kincaid wasn't pleased at no longer being the only important thing in her life.

It went on like this for a while, with awkward silences descending more and more on Jane and Dr. Kincaid, until the party. Kincaid brought together some of his friends, none of whom Jane really knew or liked, to celebrate her finally recovering. There was the one man in the room who Jane had heard got handsy with the nurses, but when she'd pointed this out to Dr. Kincaid as mildly as possible, he'd brushed it off. Jane was very conscious of his position in the room and proximity to her 

Even though the party was nominally in her honor, she soon found herself tuning out and everyone else started ignoring her. There was a protest going on nearby, and some of the partygoers were talking about the foolishness of the young people, how they'd hopefully get over it. None of them understood what they were going through, what was going on in the world outside the room. Jane wanted to scream the truth at them but she groped around in her mind for the words and couldn't find them. She had the awful sense that no one around her was a real person, that she was the only actual person here and everyone around her was just phantoms. She felt like she was swimming on the surface of a roiling sea of anger and it was ready to swallow her whole.

She walked over to Dr. Kincaid, where he was in the middle of talking with three men. He hadn't checked in on her in a while. She tugged on his sleeve, and he gave her a look of annoyance. 

"I... I've had as much as I can take," she whispered to him. Her muscles tensed. "I need to go."

"Jane, what's wrong?"

"I've had enough of the party and I need to get out."

He raised his eyebrows. "I don't see what the problem is here. I'm doing this for you." Jane stared silently, confused by his sudden hostility. It took her a moment to realize that what was simply a statement of fact for her, he'd taken as a criticism. It was not the first time, she realized.

"I need to go!" She slammed her fist down on the table. She didn't hit Dr. Kincaid—even at her angriest, she'd never wanted to—but he reacted almost as if she had. "If this is for me, then if I if it's not helping me, it's over." Now she was speaking with a voice that was resonant and powerful, a voice not quite her own. "And also, your friends are all terrible. They're glib and they're bigoted. They've never considered the lives of anyone who's not like them and they'd probably shrivel up like vampires under sunlight if they did. I don't want anything to do with them anymore."

He grabbed for her shoulder, and then she pushed him away. He stared at her, slack-jawed, as she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her. By the time she'd come home, her thoughts were focused and clear. She felt a kind of serenity in the midst of anger, like Sif did on the battlefield.

In her living room, she sat down on the couch, pulled her arms around her knees and cried for what must have been half an hour. She felt the presence of Sif beside her, putting her hand on her shoulder and stroking her hair. After a while, she stood up, wobbling on her feet, and looked into the mirror. Suddenly, seeing herself through Sif's eyes, she was overwhelmed by attraction to her own body. The body she'd always viewed with slight embarrassment now suddenly seemed radiant with beauty. She wanted to jump through the mirror, grab herself in her arms, thrust her tongue into her own mouth.

Jane lay down on her bed and felt her hands, guided by the presence of Sif, take off her own shirt and touched her small, pert breasts. The fingers traced around her nipples, pinched them and pulled at them. It was a powerful sensation, and Jane found herself imagining Sif sucking on them, playing with them with her tongue. Just thinking about it made her feel as if she was about to come. _Not yet_ , said Sif's deep, lovely voice from somewhere within her.

Jane's hand slipped down into her pants. She felt the longing of Sif for her touch, and her own sudden longing for Sif, which she could almost feel on her skin. Jane had never masturbated very much, out of that sense of quiet shame of her body and her self, which had held her back from doing so much. Suddenly Sif's firm but loving touch electrified her body. She her fingers into her cunt—she thought of it as such now, as Sif always had—and moved them back and forth, slowly but powerfully, riding the waves of pleasure. She bit her lip and tried not to scream. When she came it was like a wall breaking down before a flood. She came, and came again, and all the love and desire Sif felt flowed into her, exalting her with more pleasure and joy than she'd ever felt in her life.

Jane and Dr. Kincaid had never slept together. They'd been putting it off until marriage. This was, depending on how one looked at it, the moment Jane lost her virginity.

Dr. Kincaid came back an hour or so later to find Jane passed out on the bed. For a short time they'd tried to move on as if everything was normal and nothing had happened, but then they had an awful falling out over a movie they watched together and that was that, for a while.

Jand moved out of Dr. Kincaid's house and into the co-op where her aunt on her mother's side had lived. Jane hadn't spoken to that part of her family since she was a child, when she'd stayed at the co-op while visiting the city, and was pretty sure they'd all forgotten her. Her aunt, in fact, had thought of her fondly throughout her life and regretted never getting back in touch, something Jane only found out after it was too late. Living in a place she associated with some of the few happy memories of her childhood, Jane felt her energy return, rising to a level it never had before.

Now there was nothing more keeping Jane from Blake, and Thor, and they started dating again. She didn't think of herself as dating Sif—after all, they were still in the same body—but they made love again many times. Now that she'd cracked that barrier, she slept with Blake and Thor too. Donald Blake was a gentle, hesitant, but sweet lover. Thor was powerful and forceful but he, too, was giving and often preferred to let his partner take the initiative. Jane slept with Donald Blake and also Thor, which meant that, in a sense, she had three lovers now.

She'd been involved again with Thor's life, but now she was no longer a powerless witness. Captured, once again by the King of the Trolls, she'd taken up a spear and threatened him with it. She'd never been the strongest or most athletic person, but the trolls were not prepared for this, and that helped Thor defeat them. He very much liked this new side of her, and their love-making would grow stronger and more passionate.

She joined in more of Thor's adventures: saving the gods of ancient Egypt from the schemes of Seth, battling the Time Twisters at the end of time, going to Costa Verde—in the middle of a war similar to the one where she'd first encountered Thor—to prevent Firelord's well meaning intervention from making it worse. Now she was no longer a spectator or victim in these battles but a fighter herself. She'd even faced Dracula, Lord of the Vampires, on her own when Thor was away and lived to tell the tale. As a nurse, trained to keep her head clear in difficult situations and all too familiar with mortality, she could gain a perspective that the gods could not. At the same time, the divine passion within her brought her closer to her anger than ever before, letting it course through her pure and focused. In times of combat, she could let Sif's reflexes take her over completely.

Just as Jane was beginning to adjust to and enjoy her new life, it was turned upside down. Thor and Jane crossed the Rainbow Bridge once more to battle the being called Mangog, who had taken the place of Odin. Jane was not overcome by fear like the first time; the memories of Sif made her feel almost as if she were coming home. She took up Sif's own blade, Harvester, to go into battle—but when she touched the sword, she became Sif. Now it was Jane who was in the back of Sif's mind rather than the other way around.

Everyone wondered what had happened to Jane, and how she would fit her life with Sif's from now on—whether she would become Jane when she returned to earth, or could change back to Jane through her sword just as Thor did through his hammer. They never had a chance to find out. One crisis swiftly followed another in Asgard. Sif joined in the quest to the depths of outer space to find the lost Odin. Then Balder died and Ragnarok seemed near at hand, and was only narrowly averted. Then the Celestials, beings who stood above the gods and had seeded the universe with life, returned to Earth to deliver their judgment.

The one consolation to all this was that Sif felt as lost as Jane once had in the face of all this, confronting an entirely different layer of strange and hidden things in the world, powers that waere to gods as gods were to mortals. The Celestials had created two species: the Eternals, creatures of order, light and life, and Deviants, creatures of chaos, darkness and death. But the Eternals were not good or the Deviants evil. Both were a necessary part of humanity and it was the synthesis between the two that was needed to keep humanity from being frozen in its evolutionary progress like the Kree, Skrulls, and other species that dominated the stars.

Deviant. That was a word Jane had heard before. Her teachers had used it to refer to women who loved women. The City of Toads, their squalid, violent home, made her think of the images that had been conjured up of the lives of queer people. But Jane understood something that the others, perhaps, did not: that this place was a place of rampant life and growth, from a certain angle beautiful, needed to counterbalance the perfect, magnificent but never-changing city of the Eternals. Similarly, Jane needed to find balance in herself between the mortal and the goddess, the healer and the warrior... The part of her that loved men and the part of her that loved women? Sif made that seem so easy. But in truth, things were hopelessly out of balance. For in this time of apocalypses and Ragnaroks that hit one after another, there was no place for mortals.

Jane found it much harder to come to the fore of Sif's mind than Sif had to hers, for she was a mortal and Sif was a goddess. Sif's thoughts were always pure and clear, Jane's were hopelessly muddled and conflicted. She found herself disconnecting more and more from the outside world, as if falling into an endless sleep.

And then, abruptly, she found herself awake again. She was in the uncanny and twisted realm of the Dark Dimension, where Sif's identity had been stripped away by magic. She learned there was a war going on between Odin and Dormammu, the Dark Dimension's lord. Thor had come here only to be captured by the flame-lord's sister, Umar. Jane knew, immediately and instinctively, there was something wrong about the whole situation. In fact, this war was another manifestation of the never-ending conflict between Order and Chaos and if either triumphed it would be the ruin of the universe. Within her panic and terror at returning to life, she knew that Sif had come here for a reason and she had to carry it out. She picked up Harvester and flung it at Thor's hammer, preventing him from landing his final blow and allowing the game to reach its fated outcome: a draw.

They returned to New York and outside the Dark Dimension, Jane faded away again and Thor and Sif both mourned her loss. All three felt great sorrow. They all loved each other deeply and yet they knew it would be hard for them to find a way to live together even if Jane could be freed. For she would forever be a mortal, and feared she would have no place in the lives of Thor and Sif. Sif was as closely tied to Asgard as Jane was to Earth, while Thor could not turn his back on either world, eternally pulled back and forth. 

But when they returned to Asgard, Jane was no longer within the heart of her beloved Sif, but within a dimension of roiling chaos, filled with thousands of souls jammed together, crying out. Perhaps the pain of her situation coming so sharply into focus had sundered them. Within the timeless zone she waited, hoping beyond hope that Thor and Sif would rescue her.

They, meanwhile, believed that Jane still lay within Sif and came to the sorcerers of Asgard to seek a way to untangle the knot of Jane and Sif, but they were even more perplexed. Their hand was forced in the end when Dr. Donald Blake was arrested for the murder of Jane Foster, reported by none other than Dr. Kincaid. The private detectives he'd hired after she'd vanished had last seen her in Blake's company; he'd never forgotten about her in the time since or moved on to anyone else. Thor and Sif took a dangerous, desperate gamble--to seek again the runestaff of Kamo Tharnn, which had returned to his homeworld. With Dr. Kincaid they had ventured there, and found that in fact Jane's soul had become trapped within the body of Kamo Tharnn himself, along with all the other inhabitants of his world. Sif freed them, restoring the dead world and Jane at last to life.

Dazed after her imprisonment, she took comfort in the presence of Dr. Kincaid—earthly and solid, so different from the realms of cosmic madness where she had wandered. She could no longer remember being angry with him. As soon as they returned to New York, he asked her to marry him.

Jane had shared the life of a god, traveled to the end of time and seen the beings that had created life in the cosmos. It was all too much. She wanted things to be simple. She wanted a life that was sure and certain, a life that was free of gods and Celestials and Eternals and Deviants and Dark Dimensions and Runestaffs and feelings she could not name or understand. And so she accepted. They were married within a few weeks, while Thor and Sif sat in the front row, the two Asgardians strange guests in Dr. Kincaid's Episcopal church. When they left, Jane felt a deep sadness but also a sense of relief.

She went back and forth about whether to take his name, ultimately settling--not quite to the satisfaction of either of them--on Jane Foster-Kincaid. She left the co-op—one of the decisions she regretted the most in her life—and moved in with him again to the suburbs of Chicago. She'd hoped that she would be done forever with gods and demons and cosmic wars.

She was wrong, of course.

The sight of Broxton brought her mind back to the present. It had begun to recover from the great battle that had been fought there against the forces of Roxxon not long ago, in no small part due to Jane and her tireless advocacy. 

She touched down in a cornfield belonging to a small farm whose owner Jane had treated a number of times when she'd worked as a doctor here. Sif was waiting for them there. She was every bit as gloriously beautiful as she had seemed that day when she'd stood beside Jane's bedside and brought her to life from death. Seeing her always made Thor's heart stop.

At first, Sif had been suspicious of the hammer's new wielder, but when she'd found out she was Jane, they had become fast friends. Though they were often long apart for one reason or another, time had not dimmed the bond of Jane and Sif. The truth was she still loved Sif as much as ever, yet she dared not show her feelings because of the situation with Odinson. He had grown sullen, desperate and reckless as he was in the days before he'd been sent to Earth. She feared that part of him still resented her for taking the hammer, and worried that if she went after the women he at times had loved, it would make things even worse. Thor, of course, didn't care at all. She knew Sif had a right to her own emotions and love and didn't have to baby the ex-thunder god's feelings. She knew that once again Jane's nobility was getting in her way. She wanted to pour out all her feelings for Sif at once, damn the consequences. But this was one case where Jane's worries and inhibitions were strong enough to hold her back.

"Well met, Goddess of Thunder," said Sif. She took Thor in her warm, heavy embrace. Thor's heart near to burst from joy and longing.

"Well met, Lady Sif," said Thor, kissing her friend on the cheek. "Where is the Odinson?"

The pigeon appeared in midair and landed on Loki's shoulder, cooing in their ear. "Ah," said Loki. "I fear he cannot join us today."

There was a tattered scarecrow standing sentry above the cornfield. Thor could not remember if it had been there before. Loki kneel before the scarecrow, holding out hands filled with straw, which caught fire. They spoke the following rhyme:

Straw man, straw man, come out and play  
The crow's in the cornfield, come scare it away!

The scarecrow began to twitch and wriggle around on its pole, opened its mouth and laughed. Thor felt a chill of fear settle upon her, but it was not an unpleasant sensation, like an autumn morning. This was the Straw Man, god of numinous fear, who struck fear into the hearts of the enemies of life on Earth.

"Straw Man," said Loki, "I can see another Fear Lord roaming through the world. Can you tell us who it is?"

"Ah, I see, I see." The Straw Man had a giggling high-pitched voice, like a child's. It looked up into the sky. "No, no, I can't see. Heavy and dark is the night that surrounds the world."

The Asgardians looked up into the sky and saw that it had changed. It was darkened by clouds, with baleful orange light breaking the darkness, like the moment before a storm.

"The night," said Loki. "Of course. You were saying this is the work of an Olympian, weren't you, Thor? Surely it is Nox..."

"Who is Nox?" said Thor, though she was sure the knowledge was somewhere in Jane's memory.

"The queen of the night," said Loki, "the subduer of gods and men. Daughter of chaos, mother of fear and death. She is considered part of the Olympian pantheon, but she existed long before any of the gods, perhaps before the universe itself."

"And what are they?" said Sif. She pointed up, where strange pale creatures that glowed with hideous light flapped through the sky. They were sickly, emaciated things that had the bodies of birds and the heads of women.

"Those must be the Keres or the Tenebrae, the children of Nox. Death spirits."

"Aye," said Thor. "Death will be on hand today, but not for us." She raised her hammer, while Sif drew Harvester from its sheath. Because she was a goddess of the field, this was a place of power for Sif, so it was clever of Loki to have them face it here. Clever, but perhaps not wise: that was their way.

The Keres wheeled through the sky like warped versions of the Valkyries. Thor flung her hammer and it struck one of them down, sending it spinning to the ground. But the Keres moved as swiftly as the hammer and got out of its way. Before the hammer had returned to Thor's hand, one of them swooped down and grabbed her in its claws.

"The hand of death lies heavy upon you," croaked the Ker. Thor felt a throbbing ache, a deadening pain spreading throughout her body.

Sif swung Harvester and struck down several of the Keres, staining the field with their oozy ichor. Loki swirled and dipped through the air as a form of a hawk, flapping their wings in the Keres' eyes and wounding them with their talons. The Straw Man spat gouts of blue flame from its mouth, incinerating them at once. But it was too late for Thor. Three of the things had latched onto her, and she could not make the hammer reach her. It hung in the air, repelled by the Keres' aura of death. Pain racked her body, just as it had when Jane was struggling with cancer.

Then Sif saw her friend's struggles and leaped onto the back of one of the Keres, stabbing it through the heart. Thor knew she had to act quickly to protect her friend. She stretched out her hand. The ker lied, she told herself. The cancer had gone into remission, the problem with her hammer that had led to it failing had been fixed."I defeated you!" she spat. "I won!" The hammer wobbled in midair and then flew into her hand. She slammed it on the ground and brought down a burst of thunder, which struck the Keres. They burst into flames and fell on the ground, screaming and writhing, before they crumbled to ashes.

Sif put her arm around Thor's shoulder and helped her rise to her feet. The sun was in the sky again. The Keres were gone, and so too was the Straw Man. The touch of the death-spirit's claws still stung on Thor's skin. "Well," said Loki, "I suppose that's taken care of." 

Then the sky darkened again and the clouds took the form of a face--cold and beautiful, its mouth twisted in a cruel smile, its cold eyes piercing the heart of Thor like daggers of ice. This could only be Nox. Then the face vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Thor flew off abruptly. "Wait!" said Sif. But Thor knew where Nox would be targeting next. The last time the creature went into her heart, seeing her deepest fears, she went into the hospital.

There was only one place Nox could target next. She would be going after her child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This covers the stretch from Jane's comeback in the mid-70s to her being written out of the series again (after being largely forgotten about) in the mid-80s.
> 
> _the tribe of frogs that Thor Odinson had met_ : In the legendary Thor #364-366 by Walter Simonson.  
>  _The Fear Lords_ : A group of deities who were first brought together as a group by Roy Thomas in Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme #31-33 and 38-40. (#31 was the first Marvel appearance of Nox.) Loki faced them in Journey into Mystery #632-636 (The Terrorism Myth), which established the role and nature of the Straw Man.
> 
> _The Dweller in Darkness_ : Faced Thor and Hercules in Thor #229-230. Its name was revealed later in Doctor Strange v2 #30-37 Jane returned and her suicide attempt was revealed in #231; Sif faced Kamo Tharnn in #235 and merged with Jane in #236
> 
> _Sif had once been a kind and gentle goddess of nature and agriculture_ : This background is an attempt to reconcile Sif's characterization in the Eddas with her role in Marvel. A younger, blonde, flower-crown-wearing Sif briefly appeared in the Tales of Asgard story in Journey into Mystery #102, before her reintroduction as a warrior woman in Thor #136.
> 
> _she was trying to live her own life and resume her relationship with Dr. Kincaid_ : Originally, Jane's past relationship with Dr. Kincaid was completely ignored. The conflict between them was something I introduced to explain why Jane just ran out on Dr. Kincaid with no explanation to be back with Don Blake, and why she would do so again later after she had a child. 
> 
> _she'd taken up a spear_ : Jane battled King Geirrodur in Thor #238.
> 
> _She joined in more of Thor's adventures_ : Thor and Jane faced Seth was in Thor #239-241, Zarrko and the Time Twisters in #242-245, Firelords in #246-247. Jane's battle with Dracula is a tale that is yet to be told...
> 
> _She took up Sif's own blade_ : Jane's re-transformation into Sif was in Thor #249. After this, everyone seems to have forgotten that Jane was merged with Sif except for Chris Claremont.
> 
> _one crisis swiftly followed another_ : The quest to rescue Odin in Thor #255-266 (reprinted in The Quest for Odin, naturally), the near-Ragnarok in #273-278 (reprinted in Thor: Ragnarok (no relation)), the Eternal/Deviant/Celestial saga in #283-300 (in The Eternals Saga v1-2)
> 
> _the uncanny and twisted realm of the Dark Dimension_ : in Thor Annual #9. This Chris Claremont-written story, the first to pick up Jane's character arc in several years, had the best characterization of Jane and her relationship with Thor and Sif for quite some time.
> 
> _Dr. Donald Blake was arrested for the murder of Jane Foster_ : After almost 100 issues, the loose end of Jane's merger with Sif was finally tied up by Alan Zelenetz in Thor #332-335, clearing the deck for Walt Simonson. Jane and Dr. Kincaid are married in #336. Zelenetz implies that Jane was trapped in the staff immediately after merging with Sif, ignoring Annual #9; the continuity around Jane in this period is generally very confused.
> 
> In Thor #333, Kincaid says that he hadn't seen Jane after she mysteriously vanished after merging with Sif in #231. For the purposes of this story, I'm assuming he was straight up lying.
> 
> _the great battle that had been fought there against the forces of Roxxon_ : In Thor: God of Thunder #19-24.
> 
> _the Straw Man_ : originally known as the Scarecrow, he first appeared in Dead of Night #11.


	4. Kincaid

Flashing through the sky, Thor beheld her destination: a large home in a well-off suburb, the kind that jutted with unnecessary foyers, far too large for the one man who lived there. She felt a cold sliver of fear in her heart. It was the home of Dr. Keith Kincaid, Jane's ex-husband. 

She had no wish to see him as Jane. They'd just go through age-old arguments, pacing down tracks they'd long worn into the ground. He had no idea who the new Thor was, so she came as Thor and Thor only. She would bring nothing of Jane here with her.

Thor touched down and knocked on the door. Even as a goddess, her heart was racing. He opened the door at last, and she saw his face. It was almost more than she could bear to look at. But she was not the fragile mortal Jane Foster now, but Thor, goddess of thunder. Surely she could handle another proud man.

"Lo, mortal," said Thor. "I have heard the life of your child is in danger."

He stared blankly at her. "Oh, right, you're the new one. Come in."

The years they'd been apart had not been kind to him. There was a tension he held in his body that Thor could easily see, which made him painful to look at. Dark circles were worn under his eyes. He was holding himself tall and stiff, as if to show that even in a room with a goddess, he was still the man.

He sat down on the couch. "Would you like some tea?" Thor, still standing, shook her head--while Jane drank tea religiously, the Asgardians had never taken to caffeine, except for Loki.

"Last night, Jimmy–that's my son–started screaming. He told me that he'd seen the queen of the night--that's what he called it–sitting on his bedside, and she'd said she'd come for him at midnight. I thought he must simply be having a nightmare, but I've never seen him more scared in his life. He was covered in sweat and his heart was palpitating. I tried to sit in bed with him and take care of him. At midnight, there was this awful wind that rattled the house and the lights went out. I suddenly felt that the room had gone freezing. When the lights came back, he was gone."

Thor nodded. Had Nox already known, somehow, that they would clash and taken the child before they could meet? Or had she bent time and space, as a primal goddess of immense power? If she held such power, could even Thor stand a chance against her? But the wielder of Mjolnir never backed down before any foe, however powerful. 

"Fear not, Dr. Kincaid. Your child was stolen by Nox, the goddess of chaos and old night. But I shall go to the realm of Nox herself and I shall save your child. You have the word of the Goddess of Thunder."

He stood up, trembling. "I want to go with you, Thor. I want to save my son."

Did he truly wish to protect Jimmy, Thor wondered, or did he merely wish to show his own strength? "Nay. It is no place for mortal kind. Even the gods venture there seldom. But I shall go there and I shall return."

"Ah. One last thing. Dr. Jane Foster–that's the boy's mother–she was close to the old Thor, once. Do you know her?"

"Aye, a little."

"...is she safe?"

"As safe as anyone is," says Thor.

She turned her back on him and soared off into the sky. Thunder struck around her and rain poured down. She could turn off the rainstorm but didn't see the point. Now that she was gone, she could no longer hold back the flood of Jane's thoughts, feelings and memories. 

It was hard, now, to remember that there were good times in their marriage, that there were reasons she kept coming back. He could be kind and considerate, in a sometimes distant and paternalistic way. He made a point of getting mint chip ice cream, always her favorite flavor, for her when she was feeling low.

Life in Highland Park, Illinois, a suburb to the north of Chicago, was as quiet and peaceful as she could have hoped, and far away from anything to do with superheroes.There was nothing that felt actively wrong there, but nothing much that made her feel excited or engaged either. It was a very wealthy, very white area. But here, at least, she hoped they could live together in peace without fear.

The nightmares still came, sometimes. Once, while pregnant, she dreamed about being murdered by a serial killer in the middle of the night. People still knew her connection to Thor, so she had to deal with intrusive questions and fend off the occasional nosy journalist or writer. Other than that, life went by smoothly.

They'd conceived a child together almost the instant they'd got married. Perhaps they'd been hoping to make it feel more final and harder to back out of, knowing even then they were standing on tenuous ground. He'd predictably wound up being named James, after Jane's father–Dr. Kincaid never wanted to recall his own family.

Jimmy (as he was usually called) was wild adventurous, rambunctious, clever and intellectually curious. Jane loved him with all her heart. He loved being alone in forests and hanging around animals. He was fascinated by thunderstorms. In many ways, strangely enough, he seemed more like Thor's child than Dr. Kincaid's. Given how much she'd slept with Thor before being trapped in Sif's body, the strange things that had happened to her, and the rather hasty marriage, she couldn't be sure he wasn't. It was also possible that Sif had left something of herself within Jane which she had passed on to the child.

Dr. Kincaid hoped that after the child was born, all of that was gone and everything would be back to normal. But that was another turning point. Jane wanted to make sure there was a better world for her child. She started questioning herself more, started realizing how attitudes she'd absorbed without even thinking of them were horrific. When Jimmy started asking questions about things, she thought them through herself. Dr. Kincaid never wanted to question himself. Why would he? He was doing perfectly fine.

She recognized, too late, that having a child was the last bid to save their marriage, and it had failed. The truth, which both of them were desperately trying to avoid facing, was that she couldn't quite go back to who she was before. She couldn't make herself forget again, even when she wanted to.

The breaking point was over the move. Dr. Kincaid had been approached for a prestigious position in New York. But New York was the place where the superheroes and villains were. New York was where the most painful things in Jane's life had happened. New York was what they'd been pointedly avoiding for all these years. He seemed to think that now that they were married and had a child, she could just put it all aside and act like it didn't matter. She didn't think she'd be safe there, and more importantly, she didn't think Jimmy would be safe. So for a time they separated.

But the awful irony was that in Chicago, Jane was inevitably captured again. This time it was her old friend the Man-Beast, who was now calling himself Lord Karnivore. He seemed to think this was a less silly name. Thor came to her rescue, and in desperation she'd tried to throw herself off a cliff rather than let the Man-Beast use her as a bargaining chip. Thor saved her, of course.

This was a strange time in Thor's life, when he'd turned his back on Odin as father and joined with the High Evolutionary instead. He lived with with a group of synthetic gods the Evolutionary had made from a group of escaped prisoners in the image of the Asgardians, who called themselves the Godpack. The Evolutionary had made an offer to Jane to join him again as a teacher of newly created New Men and the Godpack. She still thought of her last time there fondly, so she accepted.

Of course the violence and chaos had come again soon. There were more battles; there was a Donald Blake who wasn't Donald Blake. (By then, Thor had left the guise of Donald Blake behind long ago.) Soon Thor left the Godpack behind, tired of the clashing of godly egos, and Jane did too, fearing that this was no safe place for her child.

The High Evolutionary had fled Transia and hidden himself in a laboratory beneath New York, so Jane had found herself back there in spite of herself. She stayed in the apartment of an old friend from the co-op, trying to figure out if she would try to get back in touch with Dr. Kincaid.

And then Onslaught came.

Jane Foster was awoken by a noise like bombs falling. She'd thought at first they were being invaded, brought back instantly to her time in San Diablo, but it was not an army. It was a single being. New York had been attacked by beings of overwhelming power before, from Juggernaut to Surtur to Godzilla itself, but Onslaught was different. This was something that affected the entire superhero community. All the world's heroes, Avenger or mutant, street-level vigilante or supernatural being, came together as one to fight it. There was a sense of fatedness in the air, a feeling that even if the creature was defeated the world would not be unchanged. 

It had taken Jane a while to absorb the reality of what was happening–it looked like a scene out of a movie. She saw the reports of people panicking in the streets, the injuries and deaths, and she knew, with a sudden clarity, what she had to do. She was afraid to leave her child but knew there was little she could do to keep him safe. Leaving him in the care of her friend, she set out to volunteer her skills as a nurse to save whoever she could.

Jane's understanding of herself changed that day. She saw, now, that there were other people in the world who were suffering as she had once suffered, people caught on the edges of the great battles who were lost and afraid. She could reach out to them, help them. They would not have to be alone as she had been.

In that battle she worked with Captain America himself. She saw how everyone's faces lit up when he was there, how even when death was so near he held himself high and encouraged people to be their best. He told Jane that she reminded him of nurses he'd known on the battlefields of World War II, who were just as brave as the soldiers even if history did not remember them. The reason people believed in him, Jane saw, is that he believed in them.

He told her that Thor was camping out in the woods across from New York, so she met her old love there that night, as he was talking to the frogs who'd journeyed all the way from Central Park to say goodbye. They talked of everything they'd been through together, of their joys and their regrets, then they worked together to save the life of an injured man who stumbled in. For the first time, they truly felt like equals. Jane had in the past felt agonized in the presence of Thor, with the weight of everything they could have had. But now she was glad of the friendship they'd shared and the time they'd had together.

The next day the battle ended. Thor was gone, as she had known he would be, along with the rest of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. No one knew if they would ever come back. Jane stayed in New York afterwards, walking the rubble-scattered streets she knew well from happier times, helping who she could.

What was remarkable was how after Onslaught, after the loss of the heroes, people had come together and helped each other. Times like these brought out the best in people and the worst. Inevitably, there would be the search for scapegoats, someone to blame and punish, as if that could make up for the damage done. In this case it was mutants, of course. Anti-mutant violence spiked in the days after the Onslaught attacks. Inevitably, those in power would use this to push their own agendas, the terror and confusion would harden into cruel certainty. But in the moment of the disaster, when that had not set in, there was only mourning, and fear, and hope, and the potential to rise to the occasion and become something more. There was something Jane thought that she'd heard from the lips of many others who'd lived through that day. The heroes were gone now, so everyone, however little power they had, had to pick up the slack, to be their own heroes.

In the days after the disaster, Jane was visited by others who had known Thor, civilians and superheroes alike. They'd shared stories, and Jimmy had hung around and listened excitedly. Jane began to open up and tell others about the things she'd lived through. She pieced together the fragmented and convoluted story of her life. It became a pleasurable thing to tell now, not an open wound but a part of a great and glorious thing that was now done. She learned to appreciate the heroes now, those gone and those still there, and the whole world she'd once felt merely like a victim of. She was now a part of the superhero community.

Jane went back to work at the hospital. She had a reputation now as a survivor, as someone who feared nothing after the things she'd lived through. Because of her connection with Thor, she was given the cases related to superheroes. She had no power and no fighting skill but she could make a difference in this world now. It was now her fighting to save the lives of superheroes rather than the other way around.

The old heroes came back not long after, of course. Now everything was the same and everything was different. Jane was working in the same hospital she'd worked before; she was still a friend of Thor both as a god and as a mortal–now working with her as the paramedic Jake Olson.

Coming back to the hospital brought her close again to Keith Kincaid. Now he was no longer her protector or her breadwinner; they were equals. She'd even become a doctor herself shortly after the heroes returned. The High Evolutionary's creations had used his knowledge machines to learn, and she'd helped direct and aid them and clarify their thoughts. She'd also used the machines herself, gaining all the knowledge she needed to be a doctor. She'd been awarded doctorate not long after the heroes came back–it was a bit irregular, but Captain America himself had spoken up for her and no one was going to turn him down just after he'd returned in glory. Kincaid didn't quite seem comfortable with working with her in this new role at first, but soon they developed a natural rapport, becoming a well-oiled machine that faced the most desperate cases with aplomb. He still seemed uneasy with superheroes at the best of times, but she hoped he would learn to accept them as she had.

Then he fell into a coma after the hospital was attacked by the Absorbing Man. He was possessed by a Hel-wraith in the form of the Executioner, which used his body to fight Thor before it was defeated. The experience changed him, and not for the better. He started obsessing over conspiracy theories, listening to late night talk shows. Gradually he was drawn more and more to anti-mutant rhetoric. A sense of helplessness and rage consumed him.

It went on like that for a while, with Jane trying to pull her husband back from his worst impulses and mostly succeeding, but she could never truly connect with him again. She tried to talk with him about what he'd been through and support him, but he wouldn't let her. She'd hoped the fact he'd been caught up in the same violence as she was meant he could understand what she'd been through, but that wasn't the case. The Hel-wraith probably left something of itself with him, just as Sif had with Jane. But perhaps it wouldn't have been able to merge with him if they didn't have something in common already.

When Ragnarok came at last and Thor died, he didn't shed a tear. It was all the more frustrating to mourn the death of someone who she had already mourned before, but this death felt truly final. It wasn't, in the end, but the funny thing was it still hurt to think about later–even knowing that he came back, the grief didn't go away. She knew, like her husband, she wouldn't have to face fear of Asgard upending her life again, but felt the heavy absence of everything that was gone. The Avengers, too, had fallen apart due to a personal tragedy that no one outside fully understood, something that had a worse impact than Onslaught. The hope that had come when the heroes had returned was gone. Everything seemed fractured, uncertain. Inevitably, war came soon.

The memory made her shudder. Thor didn't want to be weak, afraid. But the feelings were crashing down and pouring through her like the storm that surrounded her. She wanted to cry, scream, strike at everything with her hammer. Instead she slammed the hammer on the ground and became Jane once more, clutching herself in her arms and sobbing.

Jane let all the feelings she'd been holding back rush over her. She let herself feel the wounds of the Civil War and what happened afterward.

The catalyst for all the buried tensions was a battle between the New Warriors and Nitro that destroyed a school bus full of children, but Jane had known it would be coming for a long time. The unease that had been building ever since Onslaught, which had been held at bay for a long time because of the joy of the heroes' return, couldn't be held back forever. The country had stepped up to persecute mutants, and Jane knew by then that whatever it could get away with doing to the most vulnerable, it would soon do to everyone else.

She'd been working for years with with the Night Nurse, a woman who did underground care for heroes who worked on the edge of the law, as Jane worked with the more public-facing ones. They'd first worked together in the days following Onslaught. Jane provided her with knowledge, equipment and resources she needed. They were never friends, since Night Nurse was someone who largely kept to herself and didn't really have friends as such. But she still had a sort of unspoken bond with Jane, sharing many similar griefs. This had changed Jane's understanding of the superhero community, connecting her to the mutants and the vigilantes, people she might have once distrusted or dismissed.

A few years ago, she might have supported the registration act without question. When it passed, she was deeply torn. She knew that unchecked vigilantism could never lead to justice, that people like the Punisher shouldn't be allowed to roam free. But she knew that unchecked power by the government wasn't any better. The registration act was a shoddy law, passed based on reactionary outrage, which would try to solve complex problems with a sledgehammer approach. Jane knew that as always, there'd be broad brush regulations that would end up doing more to hurt vulnerable people than to help them, knew that the heroes who were fighting to support communities that the police wouldn't would be punished more.

And she didn't like how in practice, this was just going to lead to more power being put in the hands of Tony Stark. She knew him–he'd hired her as personal physician for a time. She had a sense of his struggles, strengths and weaknesses. He was not the right man to be put in in charge of all superheroes. He underestimated his own vulnerability and didn't always see the implications of things he was doing until it was too late. So the whole system was built on the shaky foundation of the goodness of one man, who wasn't necessarily up for the task. What if he lost control and a real monster took over? She wasn't sure she trusted Captain America's leadership either–while his convictions were usually right, he could be dangerously inflexible. But she knew that all the institutional support would be behind Tony's side, and Cap's needed more.

So, crying in the middle of the night, she packed her bags, left her home behind, and contacted Night Nurse to join the anti-registration side. She wrote a letter to her husband explaining her reasoning, putting effort through the tears into making her handwriting clear and her arguments solid, even though she knew in her heart it would do little good. The guilt at leaving behind her child ate away at her more than anything, more even than it had when Onslaught struck. But Jane knew what the right thing to do was and she knew she had to do it. Heroism was a contagious disease.

The next few weeks were a nightmare of running around between hidden bases, healing heroes who were on the brink of death, and running from the newly-commissioned army of SHIELD agents. She and Night Nurse worked constantly around the clock to keep everyone safe, and barely had a moment to rest or talk. 

One of those conflicts with SHIELD was the worst moment of Jane's life. Jane and Night Nurse were in the field trying to help a young hero who'd been wounded: Silhouette, an ex-New Warrior, who been pushing herself too far trying to make up for the loss of her old team. Night Raven, the legendary immortal vigilante of Chicago who'd been fighting the cops long before the war began, was there to back them up. A SHIELD agent came down on a hoverpad, wearing full armor. They were one of the new crop of agents who'd been recruited en masse for the war, mostly young men who felt powerless and trapped in anger and ready to aim a gun at anything. When Osborn took over, they would become the backbone of HAMMER.

With one shot the SHIELD trooper took down Night Raven the hero who'd been escorting Jane and Night Nurse. Night Nurse flung one of Night Raven's smoke bombs at him, and it exploded in their face, knocking them off their hoverpad and bringing his pulse-rifle crashing to the floor. They then took out their pistol–this new breed of SHIELD troopers all carried around more weapons than they'd ever need–and aimed it at Night Nurse.

The instincts that Sif had left with Jane somehow took over. She picked up the pulse-rifle, aimed it at the SHIELD soldier and shot them in the chest. By then, Night Raven had recovered and the team was were able to get Silhouette to safety. Jane had no idea if the pulse-rifle had been set on stun or not. She had no idea if the soldier was living or dead.

Jane knew, intellectually, that she'd done the right thing. That she'd acted in self-defense against a more powerful enemy to save a life. The guilt still ate away at her, rushing in on her in the moments when she was alone when she least expected it. Often she had nightmares where she'd stayed behind in the pouring rain and taken the helmet off the soldier, who was dead. Sometimes she saw the face of someone she'd didn't know, or someone she knew in passing from the hospital. Sometimes it was Don Blake's face, sometimes it was Keith's, sometimes it was her mother's or her father's. Once it was Darcy's. Once, shortly after she'd become Thor, she had a nightmare where she'd struck down the soldier with her hammer and taken off their mask to find the face of Jane.

Jane feared hurting people more than she feared being hurt. She still wasn't always comfortable with the part of her that was Thor and the way she so casually dealt out violence.

What it meant to be "worthy" to wield the hammer was far from clear, and Odin, characteristically, said nothing to explain it. Some speculated that since Thor was protector of humanity from the giants, being worthy to wield the hammer meant being willing to kill in defense of Asgard and Midgard.

What Jane feared more than anything else was that this was the moment when she had become worthy.

The war ended soon after that, in a grubby and unsatisfying way, as wars do. The side with the most guns won and the side with the most scruples lost. Captain America surrendered, and was assassinated not long afterwards, and that was that. Everyone knew that if the war dragged on that would just lead to more death and more senseless loss. A few of the heroes stayed underground and fought their own battles, but the resistance was over. Jane wasn't quite ready to let go of the fact that Tony's side had cloned Thor as a weapon, perverting his legacy. But the part of her that was shaped by Asgard knew that it had to be that way. Sometimes you fought the war to the end and sometimes you paid the blood-price and hoped desperately for peace.

SHIELD in turn had chosen not to prosecute the civilians who helped out superheroes, because that could get very ugly, and declared amnesty for anyone who accept it. Jane did, and went back home, hoping that for the sake of their child she could put aside her disagreements with her husband and move on.

The moment she came home, he started yelling at her. He accused her of betraying him, their child, their patients. He told her that Captain America was obviously wrong and she should never have listened to him and he was glad he was dead. For half an hour he screamed on and she couldn't say anything in response.

He took a deep breath, still shaking. "Jane, I–. Listen. I want to try and move on for the sake of our son, and I'm sure you do too. I'm sure you know that you were foolish, you made the wrong decision. If you can just apologize–"

Jane told herself she should shut up, should just listen to him and go along with it. But–Captain America was dead now. Thor was dead too. All the heroes had failed in one way or another. It was just as true as it was after Onslaught that someone had to step up and be the hero.

Jane shook her head. "I did the right thing as best I knew. That's the best you can say for any of us right now. It's all over now and I'm willing to put it aside, but I will not apologize for acting to save peoples' lives." She took a deep breath. "I–I'm sorry I can't apologize. I'm sorry." It was the most pathetic thing she'd ever said, but it made him quiver with anger.

"Jane, you know the anti-registration side was wrong. The superheroes have to be kept in check, and the government is taking the right measures to stop them."

"Even when they're hiring supervillains? The ones who are real killers, I mean? Men like Norman Osborn?"

"Norman Osborn is a strong man, a real American. The media slanders him because they are afraid of that, but he's exactly what this country needs, Jane." A strong man. Exactly what Keith Kincaid wished he was and could never be. She saw him suddenly all too clearly, saw the things she'd tried to keep herself from seeing, and she knew that it was over. She shook her head and started gathering up the things she'd brought.

"Jane-" his voice quavered. For a moment she was really scared he'd hit her. "Jane, I'm begging you. Please don't go. Please listen to me. Please–what about Jimmy? Just–please–" He fell to the floor and started crying, while Jane stepped around him, gathered her bags, registered for a hotel room and called a taxi. By the time she was gone she didn't feel sad and angry anymore. She felt dizzy, confused, but oddly free.

She should have broken with him a long time ago, she knew. She shouldn't have put up with where his politics were going, especially knowing he was a doctor who had real power over people's lives. Maybe if she'd pushed back against him more, stood up to him more, it wouldn't have come to this point.

She still wasn't sure for some time she was leaving him, still thought about apologizing and going back. But then she found that Asgard had returned from what should have been its final death, floating in the skies above Broxton, Oklahoma. Not only was Thor alive, but Donald Blake was too. Remembering him and knowing he was still alive made it clear what a pale imitation Keith Kincaid was, even if, as Odin suggested, the spell that made up Donald Blake had been based on him. That was the last motivation she needed to file for divorce.

Kincaid played up the sympathy of the court by telling them Jane had left him for her old boyfriend and abandoned their child. She'd lost all custody of Jimmy. This was her other greatest regret. She feared she'd never see him again, that if she did he'd be all twisted up by his father. 

The cord was cut now. She'd left behind Doctor Kincaid and everything he represented: security, safety, a quiet ideal family life of the kind that she'd wished her parents could have had. She was free to live her own life now, for better or worse.

Jane took deep breaths and felt herself come back to the world around her. It had gone completely dark. She could feel the ground under her feet but saw nothing. There was only the face of Nox, shining like the cold moon.

"Ah, hello Jane Foster. I've been waiting to meet you."

It was a cold, distant but powerful voice, a voice that made her feel the same way she had as a child hearing her father's hopeless arguments with his family through closed doors: small and alone and afraid.

Nox stepped out of the shadows. Jane beheld a woman so beautiful it filled her with awe and terror. High cheekbones were set on her purple face, long silky black hair flowed behind her. She wore a dress set with gems that sparkled like stars and a diadem in the shape of the moon. But Jane thought she saw something moving under her dress. As Jane looked hat her more, she saw something else–a mass of teeth, claws, eyes, tentacles–the sum of everything humanity feared.

She wanted to run away as far as she could. She also wanted to kneel before the goddess, to lose herself in the infinite power of her presence. She stood firm.

"What do you want from me?" she snarled. 

"You amuse me, little pretend-goddess, more than I expected." Nox stood within inches of Thor and ran her finger across her cheek. Her touch was as cold as the grave. "You've surprised me by how well you've fought. I will offer you a challenge. You may enter my Tower of Shadows–alone–to recover your child. If you win, you may have her back and I shall withdraw from your realm for a time. If you lose, your soul shall be mine as well. If anyone else interferes, neither of you will survive. What do you say to this?"

Jane took a deep breath. She knew she stood little chance of winning under these terms, but what choice did she have? She'd overcome far worse, she told herself. "All right." Jane looked into the dark infinity of her eyes. "You–you're the kind of person who's not used to people standing up to them. I know your kind. I've dealt with people like you before. You can't keep going forever. Someone will stand up to you and stop you in your tracks–maybe not me, maybe not now, but someday. But I will do my damnedest to make sure it is me."

Nox laughed. 'Very well then. We shall meet tonight at midnight." Nox swirled her cloak around herself and she was gone, and Jane was standing alone in Central Park, drenched in rain and sweat.

It was seven now, according to her phone. There was still quite some time until midnight. Jane wasn't sure to do until then. If she failed–if she didn't come back–than these would be the last hours of her life.

If she were dead tomorrow she knew, with absolute certainty, where she wanted to be now and who she wanted to be with.

She took a cab back to her apartment and unlocked the door. Darcy was there, alone, sitting in the reclining chair and reading a manga–something called "My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness." Interesting. Jane would definitely want to read that, if she had the time.

"Hi," she said weakly.

Darcy was so absorbed in the book that she didn't notice Jane at first. When she saw her, she hastily put it away. "Oh hi, Janey! What's going on?"

Jane laughed. "A lot. I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to be around. Things have been scary stressful today."

"Yeah, I'll bet," said Darcy. "You need anything, Jane?"

Jane shook her head. "I just wanted to spend some time with a friend, I guess. I–things are bad right now, really bad. I'll have to leave later tonight for–a thing, and I'm honestly not sure if I'm coming back–" Shit, she hadn't meant to say that.

Darcy's jaw dropped. She leaped out of the chair and hugged Jane tight. "What's going on?"

"I can't talk about it." Jane felt the tears running down her cheek and tried to will them to stop. It didn't work. "It's just–like I said, stressful."

"Aww, Jane. Listen. Things are going to be OK, no matter what. Even if something goes wrong I'm always gonna be there for you. OK?"

You can't follow where I'm going, Jane thought. But she couldn't say anything. She couldn't stop crying. Darcy pulled her over to the chair and cuddled up to her, sitting in her lap like a great big cat and stroking her hair. Just like in the old days. She was so wonderful. Jane suddenly realized how much she missed the touch, the feeling of her warm embrace, how she'd been starving for it for years and years. And she couldn't stop thinking now about what else Darcy could be doing with her fingers.

She wanted to tell her everything–the fact that she was Thor and how she loved her. She desperately needed to kiss her, she hungered and yearned for it like she never had before, not for her husband and not even for Thor or Don Blake. But even now, even when she was about to lose everything, she still couldn't bear to let those feelings loose and tell her. If she didn't come back, it'd be better if Darcy didn't know.

They cuddled and watched anime some more for several hours. It was one of the Gundam series. Jane only sort of registered what was going on on the screen; sometime she just closed her eyes and rested on Darcy. Jane just wanted to stay here in her arms forever, but she couldn't.

Far too soon, the timer went off. It was midnight now.

"I gotta go now," Jane said hoarsely. "Sorry." She let out a weak chuckle.

 

"It's OK," said Darcy, kissing Jane gently on the forehead. And then Jane knew–she could not afford to let Nox take away the life they'd had together. She was ready to fight. She gave Darcy one last, long embrace and stepped out the door. She pressed the button, and the thunder struck, and she was Thor. The anger that had been coursing inside her burst out and took hold of her. She was ready to fight.

Her instincts took her to Central Park. There was a patch of darkness standing there, not far from where she'd met Nox, which seemed to swallow up the rain and anything else that passed through it. As Thor gazed at it longer, she saw it was an open door.

There was nothing to be afraid of, she told herself. Thor had come back from Onslaught, he'd come back from Ragnarok itself. Thor always came back. And she was Thor now. 

She walked into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter binds together a bunch of scattershot storylines from the tail end of Thor v1 and throughout v2, as well as extrapolating from Jane's cameo role in the Civil War event.
> 
> "Murdered by a serial killer"–this actually happened in a timeline that was averted in Thor #371-372
> 
> "Nosy journalist or writer"–like Maddie Arnstein in the retrospective issue of Thor #394
> 
> "Jane was inevitably captured again"–In Roy Thomas's bizarre 90s run, from #472-489. Jane was reintroduced in #475.
> 
> "Onslaught"–Someday, Jay and Miles will get around to properly X-plaining Onslaught; I won't even try. Jane's involvement in Onslaught is from Thor #502, the last issue of volume 1, written by William Messner-Loebs. While WML's run suffered from cut-short plots and peak 90s Deodato Studios art, at his best he could bring a lot of heart and humanity to stories of larger-than-life heroes interacting with the worlds of ordinary people (as in the odd but heartfelt stretch of Wonder Woman working at a Taco Bell knockoff). He provided a strong sendoff to the first volume of Thor. Unfortunately, he has been struggling because the lack of support for older creators and health insurance in the comics industry, and is currently homeless. If you enjoyed this story, I strongly recommend donating to the [Hero Initiative](https://www.heroinitiative.org/), which exists to support comics creators in need.
> 
> "Jane went back to work at the hospital."–Jane was first seen working as a doctor in New York in Heroes for Hire (1997). This was the first time she interacted with the wider Marvel Universe, part of the wave of Silver Age nostalgia that followed the backlash to Onslaught and Heroes Reborn. She then became a recurring character in the Heroes Return runs of Thor and Iron Man (where she was Tony's personal physician).
> 
> "He was possessed by a Hel-wraith in the form of the Executioner,"–one of those fun plot elements that was completely dropped originally, was from Thor v2 #39-42
> 
> "When Ragnarok came at last"–The last arc of Thor v2, #80-85
> 
> "The Avengers, too, had fallen apart"–In Avengers Disassembled, naturally (#500-503)
> 
> "the Civil War"–Jane's involvement was originally very blink-and-you'll-miss-it. She was seen working with Night Nurse Civil War #4, the basis of their relationship here.
> 
> "the moment when she had become worthy"–The idea that part of being "worthy" involves killing is something Walt Simonson discussed in an interview, quoted [here](http://fybw.org/post/84058009135/hey-fybw-may-i-ask-what-your-opinions-are-on). Since he was one of the most influential creators on Thor, I figured that was worth addressing, thus the Civil War retcon. It was also heavily influenced by Claremont's character arcs in X-Men, as with all my writing.


	5. Thor

There was no sky above. There was no earth below. There was only darkness, darkness that stretched out forever.

Floating in the darkness, Thor felt infinitely small, and yet she knew that she mattered enough for the goddess Nox to goad her to enter this realm.

"Well?" she said. "Come out and face me! Or are you afraid, o subduer of gods and men?" Nox did not come, and Thor's voice faded off into the endless distance. There was nothing for it to reflect off of.

At first there was only a solid mass of infinite darkness, and Thor saw only the sparkling imprints of old light on her eyes. In the darkness around her, she thought she saw patterns–sometimes a forest with warriors riding by, sometimes a great city, like New York but far larger. Phantasmal presences lurked everywhere, which she could not fully see and did not want to. She saw lines among the darkness carved out of deeper darkness, and thought back to reading Milton in college: "No light, but rather darkness visible."

Ahead she saw a tower taller than the world, which went up forever and went down forever–the Tower of Shadows. A sort of circular balcony or landing pad stood in midair, surrounding the tower, lead to tall, massive doors which rose into a sharply pointed arch. She really should have called it Fort Nox, thought Jane. Damn it, Darcy is rubbing off on me... That'd be nice, actually.

The doors were engraved with twisting patterns, their knockers, of course, in the form of faces distorted by terror. She picked up the handle and knocked on it. The face let loose a blood-curdling scream and the doors slowly creaked open.

"I am not impressed, 'Queen of the Night'," said Thor. "Is this all you have to offer to me? A haunted house?" She could only hear the laughter of Nox echo in the distance. The hallways were made of pale blue stone, lit by pale, intricately sculpted bone-like torches of flickering blue flame. The shadows within seemed even darker than without. Thor ventured on.

On and on the corridors went, and on Thor walked, her steps echoing in the infinite silence. The door at the end seemed no closer than when she had begun. She wondered if she would ever reach it. It felt like trying to finish a paper back in college, Jane thought–and she'd done that many times. She closed her eyes, then focused all her thought and will on the door and charged forward. She felt herself crash through it, and her eyes were suddenly assaulted by light and color.

There were buildings burning, very familiar buildings, and screams and shots in the distance. This was Broxton in its last days. But there were no people here, only the buildings and the noises coming from nowhere. It was just an echo of the horror she'd seen a long time ago. Thoughts of the town and the life she'd led there filled her mind.

Everyone had thought that Asgard was gone for good. Jane had resigned herself to the fact that the thing that had defined so much of her life was over now. So she was shocked as much as anyone when Asgard appeared in the skies above a small town in Oklahoma, and Thor with it–and at the same time, she'd heard rumors Don Blake was alive.

Though Jane had desperately wanted to be with Donald Blake again, more than anything, she didn't dare approach him. She was afraid he'd turn her down down and the last thin thread of happiness in her life would be snapped. For a while she stayed in the hospital, going to work every day and trying not to see her soon-to-be-ex husband as they walked down the same corridors.

It was Blake, in the end, who found her. He came searching for Sif, who was still missing while the other gods had returned. (It was Loki, of course.) They had all been reborn in mortal forms, so Don Blake lived again, once more Thor's anchor to the mortal world. He'd hoped that Jane might know Sif's whereabouts because of their past bond. Jane had been deeply, inexplicably angry at first that he had come searching for Sif and not her, even though she herself missed Sif with all her heart. But soon she was ashamed of this anger and put it aside, and came to join him in Broxton.

It didn't work out in the end. Now that she was more rooted in the world around her, she could never love Blake with the fierce, all-consuming, single-minded devotion she'd once had. They were now simply friends, though the undercurrent of old desire never quite went away. After a while, Thor died (again) and came back (again) and he and Blake were separated; Blake passed away and into the world of dreams, where perhaps he had always belonged, to live out a final happy ending. Jane and Thor had both moved beyond him.

But that didn't matter, because by then Jane had found a new love: the town of Broxton. She hadn't just come there because of Blake. Norman Osborn was in charge now, and as someone who'd opposed the registration act and had long been associated with heroes, Jane's life was in danger. A place like Broxton, far out of the way of most heroes and villains and living under the shadow of the gods, was as safe as she could be. But she had come come to feel at home here, so even after Osborn's failed siege of Asgard and his final defeat, she stayed.

It was a very different kind of life. In New York, she'd been surrounded by people– for someone who had long feared being noticed it was sometimes terrifying and intimidating, sometimes a relief. Many lives passed through hers without leaving much imprint. Here, in a place with vastly fewer people, she stood out more. She knew almost everyone here. She mattered to them, and they in turn mattered to her. Sometimes the smaller community made her like she actually had a place to belong, something she hadn't in a long time. Sometimes it feel paradoxically more hemmed in and more isolated. Life was far more complex than she knew from her vague impressions of rural life back home. There were bigots and there were also people who were queer, black, disabled; people who were pushing back against the oppression and trying to make things better. There was poverty and uncertainty and despair, but people held onto joy in the face of it. The gods' arrival brought more uncertainty but also new sources of hope.

Broxton became a place of pilgrimage, bringing in worshippers of Asgardians from all over the world. Their faith gained new converts among the locals; some who had been driven out of the church, especially queer people, took refuge there. Others scarcely noticed their faith shifting under their feet. There were even those who followed Christ and the Aesir after a fashion. Even after Asgard returned to its place in the cosmos, Broxton remained a holy place, which the feet of the gods had touched. Though Jane was never exactly a believer herself–she never had a faith she could fully claim as her own–she still commanded respect among those who did, and found herself part of their community as well. 

She was part of Asgard, too, the community of the gods themselves. With Odin still missing and Asgard brought down closer to her level, she no longer felt terrified and intimidated by it. Sif soon returned as well, and Jane was overjoyed to renew their bond. She didn't realize how much she'd missed Sif until they met again, and from that moment they were fast friends and knew they always would be. 

So Jane walked in two worlds now, two communities which were both facing a crossroads and were changed by each other, and she helped mediate between them. She had set up a medical practice with Don Blake and took it over herself when he passed away. She was now used to the pattern of facing catastrophe and loss, then trying to put aside and move on. She started dating a man named Walter who'd recently lost his wife. He didn't excite her, but he was kind and decent and being with him meant she didn't have to sleep alone at night. She suspected he felt the same way about her.

So life went on decently enough, and then another catastrophe came, this one smaller and more personal but no less devastating. Jane found she had cancer. She couldn't believe it at first. She ignored all the signs even though she knew well how to recognize them. When it finally dawned on her that after everything she'd lived through, after surviving Ragnarok and the end of time, the judgment of the Celestials and the war of the heroes, she would die in such an ordinary and human way, she started laughing. She began the long and brutal process of chemotherapy, but it seemed to do little good. Once again, the life she'd put so much effort into building was gone, stripped down to the bone. 

Her friends in Broxton and Asgard did what they could to support her. Thor and Sif both come to her and offer her magical help. Sif offered her a taste of the Apples of Idunn, but Jane couldn't bring herself to eat of it, remembering her ordeal in Asgard. She turned them both down as firmly as she could, saying she wanted to face this as a human being. She'd regretted her words as soon as she'd said them. Out of pride and guilt she hadn't spoken the full truth. The countless people she'd seen die of cancer hadn't had those advantages, beginning with her mother. It wouldn't be fair if she had that and they didn't.

Jane was wondering whether or not she'd stay in Broxton to the end. As was so often the case, someone else made the choice for her–in this case, troll mercenaries hired by Roxxon Oil. It was inevitable that a place like Broxton, with its new forms of community coming into being inspired by the gods, would come under threat from those in power. Where Osborn had failed, Roxxon's armies had succeeded, razing the town to the ground and burning down Jane's practice.

But Thor had offered her a choice that might allow her to take more control: she could serve as the speaker for Midgard in the Council of Worlds, the Heimsthing. Jane thought this offer was a noble but silly gesture–shouldn't it go to someone who had some experience dealing with government? She felt intimidated, confused, and hopelessly underqualified, and wasn't at all sure she had the right to speak for the whole world. She took the offer anyway. Why not? If she came to Asgard and it didn't work out, she could turn it down, but if she turned it down, she'd never get a chance to see if it worked or not. And it wasn't like she would live a lot longer.

Walking up the rainbow bridge to Asgard for the second time as a mortal, she still felt the same overwhelming burst of color and motion, but she did not panic. Much had changed since her ordeal–both in Asgard and in her. Perhaps after all the things she'd seen and done, gained and lost, the fact that she stood on the edge of death, she was beyond panic now. Her feelings about whether or not she wanted to stay were still balanced on an edge. After a while, she realized she had mostly taken this job to prove a point to herself, and she wasn't sure whether or not she had. And she wasn't sure how much longer she would be around to see what she was working so hard to build.

Jane wasn't the only one who was struggling. In a pitched battle fought on the moon, Thor underwent something that made him no longer feel worthy to wield the hammer. So many people in her life and in all the world were on the brink of collapse and catastrophe. Though Jane, like most people on Earth, didn't know it then, the universe was about to end, and the unravelling of all things was felt by everyone in ways large and small.

This is how things stood when the moment came that changed her life.

Jane was treated in the same hospital in New York where she'd once worked, and spent most of her time on Midgard there. She had come to a sudden knowledge that, however much Broxton and Asgard meant to her, if she was going to die, she had to die in New York. In one of her rare moments for herself outside of her treatments and the Council, she sat in a small coffee shop she'd frequented back when she was in college–amazingly still there–reading a book, trying not to think about the future. There was a woman sitting next to her, and Jane mostly tuned out her presence while she sat and flipped through the pages. As she found herself paying less and less attention to the words, she looked up at the woman, middle aged and wrinkled and unassuming, wearing a worn jacket. Her skin was caked with sweat and she was breathing sharply. "Uh?" said Jane. "Are you ok?"

The woman tried to nod but she suddenly spasmed and collapsed on the floor, clutching her chest. With her long history of dealing with crisis as a doctor and and a companion of heroes, Jane reacted immediately. She felt the woman's carotid pulse and listened to her breathing. She was having a cardiac arrest. 

Oh hell, Jane thought. "Somebody call 911!" she shouted, but she knew no one get there in time. Still, she was going to do her damnedest. "All right," she said, "stay with me." She put her hands on the woman's chest and pressed it up and down, performing the CPR as she had done so many times. The breathing seemed to stabilize a little but her pulse was still jagged and uncertain.

She felt frozen and sick. She'd seen so many people die of cardiac arrest, even when she was prepared and working with the best equipment, and there was no chance of that now. She glanced hurriedly around to see if there was an external defibrillator around somewhere. There wasn't. Without that, this woman probably didn't stand a chance.

Please, she thought. Please, someone, help me save her. It was a prayer flung out at random, to anyone or anything that would listen.

Jane felt a rush of wind surrounding her and instinctively close her eyes. She was hit by a sudden sense of vertigo, dizzy and lightheaded.

She opened her eyes and saw she was standing on the moon. 

Jane blinked. She opened and closed her eyes several times to see if she would still be on the moon. She was. She hesitantly took a step, then toppled over and sledded along the ground, getting moon dust all over her clothes. Still a bit wobbly, she pulled herself up and brushed it off. It took her a while to get used to it, but soon she was confidently striding and leaping across the moon's surface. _Well_ , thought Jane, _this wasn't on my list of things to do before I die, but I'll take it_. She didn't know what she was looking for exactly, but something was drawing her forward: a deep, certain purpose.

And there it sat, in the heart of a crater, the thing whose presence had shadowed so much of her life, the symbol of strength and power and might: the hammer Mjolnir.

_Well now what am I supposed to do_ , she thought. She felt herself stepping forward, her palms itching, stretched out. She was getting a bizarre impulse to pick up the hammer. She tried to fight it down, like when she was a kid and had gotten similar impulses to eat bugs, but it was too strong.

"There must always be a Thor," she whispered to herself.

She remembered once, long ago, when she'd daydreamed about being married to Thor and ecstatically polishing his hammer. You didn't have to be Freud to know what that meant. But perhaps what she'd wanted the most after all was to hold the hammer itself, to weild the power it represented, a thing she didn't dare to dream of, so she buried it under fantasies of matrimonial bliss.

Her hands gripped the handle, and she lifted it up with all her strength, as little as that was. She could have sworn she felt it wobble but she wasn't sure. A little voice, which sounded a bit like Odin and a bit like Dr. Kincaid, whispered in her mind: there's no point. You can't do this. You are not worthy.

Fuck it, Jane whispers to herself, I'm worthy. She gripped it again and pulled even harder. It lifted just an inch off the ground, and then...

It was impossible to describe what the hammer was like. It was a bit like falling in love for the first time. It was a bit like the burst of anger she'd felt, let loose after being frozen so long in her heart, when she'd left her husband. It was a bit like what she was always told sex was supposed to feel like, but seldom ever did. It was a bit like the wonder she'd felt first reading about legends and myths and heroes as a little girl.

The thunder burst through her body, the power and new life took hold of her. And her name was Thor.

She opened and closed her eyes, beholding the moon and its bright light and the earth in the sky above like a child seeing the world for the first time. She was something old and something new. Her thoughts and emotions felt much clearer and stronger, the old anxiety and doubt no longer holding them back. But Jane, the old Jane, was still there inside her, her mind and thoughts fully formed. It was not so different from the old days when she was merged with Sif, except that the other mind was her own. She was both the reader and the book.

First things first: she had to go back to Earth to save that woman's life. That was some way away but she could manage it. It was easy enough to fly, Thor found. You just pick up something that's heavier than the world and fling it ahead of you, so its gravity pulls you away. She flung the hammer ahead of her and left the surface of the moon, plunging into the Earth's atmosphere and down to New York, a familiar path for the hammer. 

She touched down in the same coffee shop she just had left. Somehow, only moments had passed. Some people were trying to figure out where Jane had vanished to. "Does anyone have a defibrillator?" someone asked.

Thor strode into the coffee shop like its rightful ruler. "Will this do?"

She lay her hammer ever so gently on the woman's chest and let loose the smallest amount of its power in her. The woman gasped, suddenly breathing in and out. Thor took her hands and felt her pulse. The part of her that was Jane had been in this situation so many times, knew well the tipping point between life and death. She knew that, however difficult it would be, this woman was going to live.

But she had no chance to stay and let anyone give her thanks. A vision of another conflict had flashed into her mind when she'd picked up the hammer: a battle between Odinson, ice giants and the forces of Roxxon. She leaped into the battle headlong, the first she ever fought as a hero. It was a very different experience when she was the one with the hammer. She was strong, powerful, exultant. The last shadow of fear was gone.

Yes, she told herself, striding through the citadel of Nox. I am Thor, and I am not afraid.

A door stood ahead of her with the same patterns as the one in front. Opening it, she saw the city of New York, similarly filled with noises of distant chaos. The sky was a dull red and another Earth loomed above. This was the moment before the world ended, before the Secret Wars. The helplessness and terror of that moment, too, still loomed large, something she was powerless to stop even as a god. But they'd made it–life went on, with Thor one of the few burdened with the knowledge that the cosmos had died and been reborn. Earth had survived, not unchanged, but still there. Just like her.

She knew, too, that even in the face of the end of everything there were people doing their best to help those around them and stay kind in the face of horror, as she once had. She knew where to look for the helpers and from that knowledge she drew strength, even to the end. There was no sign of that in this false mockery of the city she loved, and so she knew it was a lie. She found another door, and passed through it.

This was the hospital again. It was packed with a shambling crowd of people, stumbling around, numb with terror. Some were burned all over their bodies and some were bleeding from gunshot wounds and some were gaunt and hairless, struggling with cancer–like Jane had. They all cried out to Jane–Thor–for help, but when she reached out to touch them, they faded away. Thor closed her eyes, filled with tears, and walked on.

She wondered if she'd ever be fully free of the trying to survive cancer, a burden she carried with her even after she became a hero. Somehow, the transformation into Thor had flushed the chemo out of her body and so becoming Thor was slowly killing her. 

Still, things were fine as Thor for a while. She was happy to leave the life of Jane Foster behind. When she was in the form of Thor she mostly chose not to think about it. She kept her human self secret from the Asgardians, even her dearest friends, because she remembered the last time she'd tried to claim godhood. She pushed on through force of will for a time, until after her battle in Muspelheim to avert the "War of the Realms" that Malekith had sought to create. Coming back to Asgard, the hammer slipped from her hand and she collapsed in the ground, near dead, as Jane. As the Asgardians nursed her back to health–she was too weak now to refuse their aid–she finally let her friends know the truth of who she was and what she was suffering. Sif had persuaded her that it was not unnatural to seek help, that the hammer should not have interrupted her treatment and something was wrong with it.

If you had a magical health problem, there was only one specialist you could go to for that. A few days later, Jane, in human form but holding the hammer in her hand, knocked on door of Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. It was an old brownstone building which somehow seemed to attract all the dust in the area. Most people passed by without noticing it. Waves of decay and gentrification had passed over Greenwich Village since its existence, but the old brownstone was still there. It seemed unchanged since the day Doctor Strange had moved in, though in fact it had been destroyed and rebuilt several times.

She knocked on the door and it creaked open. Behind was the tall, solid presence of Wong. He bowed to her, imposingly polite as always. Wong was an iceberg. He did not say one tenth of what he thought and felt. He seemed to subsume himself entirely in his duties as guardian of the Sorcerer Supreme, but it was clear even from the little Jane knew of them that they shared a life together which even their friends could scarcely understand.

"Ah, hello, Dr. Foster," said Doctor Strange as he stepped out from the shadows of the Sanctum. He recognized her instantly, even though they had barely interacted. "What would be the problem?" She told him–having been assured by all her friends that he was someone he could trust and, after all, he was speaking to her as a doctor. He nodded, turned away from her and spoke briefly to Wong. They were having a conversation, most of which took place outside of words.

Doctor Strange led her into the Sanctum, past shelves and shelves of artifacts, and sat her down on a richly embroidered 19th century chair. Jane felt like it should be in a museum and it was almost sacrilege to sit on it. Holding up the hammer with a spell (the Crimson Bands of Something-or-other), he stretched out his hands and invoked the names of many beings Jane had never heard of and some which she had heard of and would rather not have heard again.

For all the magic, this was an experience all too familiar to Jane–waiting in an office for the tests to be done, for the verdict to come in. She'd been on both sides of that many times now.

After a while of closing his eyes floating in midair while magical energies caressed the hammer, he opened them and touched back down on the ground. "Well," he said, "it seems to be a simple problem. Tell me–did the hammer travel in time recently before you gained it?"

"I think so," said Jane.

"And did the hammer encounter its past or future self?"

 

"It could have. I mean, time travel is weird."

"Then that's likely the issue. Mjolnir encountered its own counterpart, and became slightly out of sync with its own timestream–the sort of thing hypertemporal physicists call a Blinovitch effect. That's all fixed now. I've nudged it back into its own timestream. If you don't press yourself too far, the cancer should be in remission soon enough. The hammer wants you to live, and it'll help your body do all the work it should have been doing all this time." He guided the hammer back to her hands.

"That's it?" said Jane. "No grand quest, no battle with Death, just wave your hand and everything is OK?"

"Indeed so," said Doctor Strange. "Sometimes it turns out that way."

Jane couldn't believe the weight was finally off her shoulders. She felt dizzy, almost relieved, but mainly angry and embarrassed she didn't get help earlier. "Is anything wrong?" said Doctor Strange.

"Nothing," said Jane. "It's just–well, OK. I'm a bit mad at myself for not getting this looked after before."

Doctor Strange nodded. "From the sound of it, you were having trouble engaging with that–living life as a mortal. That can be difficult for the best of us."

"You're a surgeon," said Jane. "Or a sorcerer, or whatever, not a psychiatrist."

"First and foremost, Dr. Foster, I am a doctor. And speaking as one doctor to another... Sometimes, we feel guilt over all those we have failed to save, we desire to... to punish ourselves for that failure. But the truth is–there are so many lives that depend on us. We have to value ourselves, both for our sake and for theirs. You are owed something better than a slow and painful death."

She nodded at Doctor Strange, without saying anything, turned around and walked out.

It all happened as he had said. Slowly, she grew back the hair she'd lost to chemo, and she thought of Sif. When Sif was younger she'd had long, shining golden hair which had been stolen away by Loki. Thor had gone among the dwarves to gain new hair for her. When she took up the sword, Sif cut it off and through magic grew new, dark hair. She could never return to what she was before, nor did she wish to.

It's hard putting your life back together after a long sickness, and even more so when you were living someone else's life on top of your own. That was part of why, even though it had been put back together, she'd decided to leave Broxton and get a fresh start. The town, too, was healing and recovering. It had gotten aid due to the tireless campaigning of various gods and superheroes, including Thor herself. There were definitely things she'd miss about Broxton: the night sky was closer there, and the stars were brighter, and she knew everyone by name. But she still felt like it wasn't her home anymore.

Jane talked about her decision to her friends and colleagues in Broxton, other doctors who she had helped. They agreed it was all right for her to leave. Others had left the city in the chaos of the recent months, and other doctors had taken her place. It was being restored, with the accelerated pace that belonged to everything that happened around superheroes. Sif and other Asgardians would continue to watch over the town that they had come to love. Both Broxton and Jane were on the road to recovery now, and perhaps they both deserved a fresh start.

After cancer went fully into remission, she moved back into New York. Her home had changed, and not for the better. With gentrification, increasing desperation and rising sea levels. it was a sick city. But she would stay with it as long as she could, just as with her other patients. When she drove into town, the cars were honking at her constantly. Ah, she thought. Home.

And so it had gone on: going back to the hospital, doing her job as both a doctor and a superhero. Having drawn so close to death, she was conscious of her regrets and the things she'd never got a chance to do. One of them was getting back in touch with Darcy. She was afraid Darcy would be angry at her for losing their connection all this time, but she was overjoyed, and they'd picked up their old friendship like it had never been gone.

As Thor, Jane got to save the city many times. She even fought some of the villains who'd captured her in the old days, like Zarrko the Tomorrow Man. She was now the kind of hero she'd once looked up to. Things were still confusing and uncertain sometimes, even as Thor. She still wasn't sure of the balance of her life. Sometimes Thor felt like Jane was dragging her down. Sometimes Jane felt the same way about Thor. But now she knew she could stand up and fight for the things that mattered to her, in both her lives.

She found the next door and stepped through it.

On the other side was her childhood home, exactly as it had been all those years ago. This place seemed more real and more defined than the vague dream-spaces she'd been wandering through. There was her bedroom door, exactly as it had been–except for the now familiar patterns–and on the other side were her relatives arguing. Instinctively, she froze up. But then she was was angry at Nox for toying with her like this, for dragging out all her own pain. She would pay for this.

Thor gripped her hammer, and told herself: I am Thor, goddess of thunder. I am not a frightened girl. I am Thor, and I will triumph.

She opened the door–which she knew had to be the last door–and walked into the throne room. It was a cavernous circular room, with a raised throne in the center, carved into a sort of crystalline stalactite that extended from the high ceiling to the floor, covered by jagged spikes like an infinity of teeth. A pale globe of blue pseudo-light was suspended above. It looked a bit like the head of an anglerfish.

Thorny vines bearing black roses crawled along the walls. Those walls held shifting patterns, which Thor realized were faces, distorting like smoke in the wind. Somewhere she thought she recognized the face of the man who'd once been the monster she fought earlier.

"Welcome, welcome," said Nox, clapping her hands, which echoed throughout the room. "So you finally made it."

"I tire of games, Nox," said Thor. "Except for the game of hammer-tossing!"

"Well," said Nox, "I see you are angry, Goddess of Thunder. If you wish to strike me, go ahead. Be my guest."

She would regret her glib contempt when the hammer struck her, thought Thor. She flung it at Nox with all her night. The goddess of fear did not move or raise any defense. The hammer passed through her, and her body dissolved into sparks of shadow. The hammer struck the stalactite with a clang that echoed through the room, almost knocking Thor off her feet.

"Do you understand now?" said Nox, her voice booming from above. Thor looked up and saw Nox's beautiful, awful face leering down at her from the ceiling and felt the night-queen's cold laughter ring through her. Thor understood then. The citadel was Nox. The whole dimension was Nox. Thor was small and alone within the goddess of terror.

She trembled but stood firm as the hammer returned to her hand. "Why?" she cried out. "Why are you doing this?"

"Long and long ago I was born," said Nox, "long before the world was made, in the darkness and silence of the beginning. In those days I knew peace, but then the light and the noise of creation came and troubled my endless sleep. I could not help but hate it. For a moment not long ago, everything ended, and then everything was quiet, quiet and peaceful and dark, just like the beginning. For a little while it was happy. But then it all came back–all the light, all the noise. And so my wrath was kindled as never before.

"Creation threatened my life, but when life came into being I lived on through its fear. In many worlds by many names I was known and feared. I could never manifest my full power in your world, for I am not of it, but through fear I could enter a little through the cracks. But in doing so, I became bound to your world, and to the myths that were told about me.

"On Earth, I was the goddess of the night sky–the first and oldest fear of humanity. But now my power is dying. It is impossible now for people to see the stars. The lights of the cities at night, overtaking the world, are like a knife in my heart. I have seen this happen in many worlds, my power dying away as the world becomes more ordered and certain. But I still live on in the hearts of mortals. They all know that at any moment that order could be torn away and night will fall again. And so I will come again, I will tear down your cities, and I will once more teach mortals to look up at the night sky in fear."

Thor was silent. She could say nothing. That within her which was Jane turned over what Nox had said in her mind, and in time, spoke. "You are not the only one that has suffered from that which mortals call 'civilization,'" she said, "and your plan will hurt the ones who are the most hurt like you. You could reach out to all those who 'civilization' has preyed on or failed. You could draw strength from them, and they from you.

Nox laughed. "Sympathy for the weak is a mortal failing. And you are nothing but a mortal who pretends to be a goddess."

Thor looked up into her eyes and saw three different things there. Nox was a powerful, imposing, painfully beautiful Goddess. But she was also something small, limited, afraid herself for all the fear she wielded, something almost like a mortal. People create fear because of the fear in their own hearts. Jane knew that from her own family. And yet she also knew the infinite tower itself was merely a shadow cast by something vast and eternal and unspeakable, something perhaps greater than the universe itself.

Such was the paradox of gods.

"And yet I must say, Thor–I am impressed," said Nox. "Being what you are, you should never have made it this far. You have proven yourself–and there is nothing you can do to stop me. There is no need of a battle today. I will let you have your child. Go, leave. Enjoy your life together for as long as it lasts."

There was nothing Thor could say to that. She knew Nox was wrong, that she would fight to her last breath–but she had come here to save her child, and she had reached her limits. The time for that was not now. Another door opened in the side of the room, and she entered it. 

Thor walked down another long corridor, where she heard her child crying. She reached a door–another damned door–and opened it. She found herself in another dark, empty room. There was something strangely, awfully familiar about it. 

"Jimmy? Jimmy?" she cried out. But nothing answered. The cry came out from everywhere in nowhere. It grew louder and louder, and gradually it mutated into another sound, like the ringing of a tuning fork.

"Thor, Thor, you were ever a fool. I have you now forever," said the voice of Nox. "I could strike you down in an instant with my soul-drinking blade. But not just yet. I want to feel the fear of a god. I want to wait until you beg me to take your soul. For I have another visitor here, one who has been dying to see you again."

Thor knew, as one knows in a nightmare, she was not alone in the room. She felt–as she had felt before, the last time she had come here–an urge to rush and beat on the doors. For this was the room where Odin had locked her on her trial of godhood. But there would be no help coming from her now. Again, she saw the movement in the shadows, the hand reaching out to her.

The hand of the Lurking Unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _It was Blake, in the end, who found her_ : Thor v3 #8
> 
> _Thor died (again) and came back (again)_ : Fear Itself and Mighty Thor #8-12
> 
> _Blake passed away and into the world of dreams_ : Mighty Thor #13-17
> 
> _Osborn's failed siege of Asgard_ : in (naturally) Siege
> 
> _She had set up a medical practice with Don Blake_ : At the end of the World Eaters arc in Thor #621. (This is around when the renumbering starts to get really irrittating.)
> 
> _Jane found she had cancer._ : Jane's cancer and her relationship with Walt are established in Thor: God of Thunder #12
> 
> _Troll mercenaries hired by Roxxon Oil_ : In the "Last Days of Midgard" arc in Thor: God of Thunder #19-24
> 
> _Thor underwent something that made him no longer feel worthy to wield the hammer_ : In the Original Sin crossover. In post-Secret Wars canon, it was revealed in The Unworthy Thor miniseries that Fury told him that Gorr the God Butcher was right that gods were unworthy. In this canon, the context and emphasis is a bit different. Hopefully, I'll get around to exploring that one of these days.
> 
> _She opened her eyes and saw she was standing on the moon._ : This builds on the opening scenes of Thor v4 #1. The context around it is, again, different from what Aaron established post-SW. Nothing against Aaron's run, but my priorities and themes are different from his.
> 
> _when she'd daydreamed about being married to Thor and ecstatically polishing his hammer._ : An infamous scene from Journey into Mystery #89
> 
> _Mjolnir encountered its own counterpart_ : in the God Butcher arc in Thor: God of Thunder #1-11.  
> 


	6. Jane

This, Jane knew, was no hallucination. It felt too corporeal, too powerful. This was the very same creature she had faced in the vault of Asgard all those years ago–the Lurking Unknown.  
She closed her eyes, and it didn't make any difference. She could still see it in the darkness, its presence thick and heavy, even darker than the infinite darkness that surrounded it. 

It didn't matter anymore that she was a goddess. Her strength, her will had been melted away. Her flesh felt wax-like and unfirm. She was still every bit as helpless as she'd been in the old days, mortal and alone. She gripped the hammer and reminded herself of who and what she was. The Lurking Unknown draws strength from fear, she remembered. The more fear its enemy feels, the larger it grows. All she had to do was banish her fear. It should be so easy now.

She struck the hammer on the ground, bringing down the lightning, but the darkness swallowed it up and the thunder was curiously muffled. The creature lumbered forward. Just as it was before, she felt not only the fear of the creature but all her fears at once--fear that she would lose her child, that she would lose Darcy, that Darcy wouldn't love her back, that she was carrying so many responsibilities she'd collapse under their weight, that there were so many things wrong with the world now that even the power of a goddess couldn't save it. All the fears that fluttered around her every day came in on her at once, blinding her and choking her like a swarm of insects.

The creature's hands, like a cross between leather and tree bark, grabbed her and pressed into her flesh. She couldn't scream.

And then she was a little girl, standing by the bedside of her mother. This was the memory out of all of them she feared the most, something she never thought about if she could help it: the day her mother died. She watched her, gaunt, emaciated, yet oddly peaceful now that the end was almost at hand, her chest slowly rising and falling. They'd talked together as she went over all the memories of her life and slowly faded into incoherence. Jane held her mother's right hand while her father held the left, doing her best to stand firm even though she was ready to dissolve into a puddle of tears and phlegm. The memory was all jumbled up now–the hospital bed stood by the ocean where Darcy had almost died, and the blood-earth of the Incursion hung above in the red sky. 

This was the time she'd first been overcome by the fear, pain and helplessness that had come to define her life. She'd hoped when she'd become a god she'd be past all that. But in the last year she'd seen the superhero community fall apart again just like her marriage, and she'd watched the world die slowly around her just like her mother.

"You don't have to be here," whispered her mother. Jane shook her head and said nothing. "You're very brave." Her mother hacked up what sounded like an awful cough, but Jane knew it was joyful laughter. "Jane," she whispered mother. "I'm sorry it had to end this way but I'm glad of all the time we had together. I remember... I remember there was a time, before I met your father, when I wanted to die more than anything. It seemed like nothing in my life could go right. Now I'd give anything for just one moment longer. But at least I got to spend some time with you." She laughed. "I'm sorry I won't be there for your future. It'll be amazing, Janey, in spite of everything. Just remember." She squeezed Jane's hand, and Jane could feel her mother's fading heartbeat. "Remember, Odin was wrong. You are worthy, and you have always been worthy."

Jane gasped. She gripped her mother's hand tight and found she was holding her hammer. The truth lit up her life like a stroke of lightning. Odin was wrong, her husband was wrong. Everyone else who'd ever put her down or ignored her or diminished her was wrong. She was worthy.

She thought about all the things in her life that made her strong, all that she had done and all the people she had known and loved. She thought of Sif, of Odinson, of Jimmy, of Darcy–even of Loki, though she'd never tell them that. She was not the woman who faced this ordeal a long time ago, adrift and lonely, clinging desperately to the thread of her one connection. If her fears and anxieties had grown over the years, then her courage had grown too, and so had her bonds of friendship and love. 

She let herself feel the fear, hopelessness, pain, rather than push it away, letting it flow through her body. She could face her fear now and name it. She could make out its outlines in the darkness. It was just another enemy now.

"I am worthy" she said to herself, gripping the hammer tight. "I am worthy to live. I am worthy of happiness. I am worthy of love. I am worthy of my own life. I am worthy to stand up for myself and my beliefs. I am worthy!"

She slammed it down on the ground and a huge burst of lightning struck from above, the largest she'd ever called down, hitting the creature right in its face and stopping it in its tracks. It screamed, a wrenching sound like metal twisting in an earthquake. It staggered back, letting her go. She stood firm and struck it again and again, and it began to literally shrink before her.

And it lay cowering on the ground, clutching its head, in the form of the soldier she'd killed. Standing in the streets slick with rain and blood, Thor found her hand moving down to strike the final blow, just like in her nightmare.

It's as scared as I am, Jane thought.

With great effort she stayed Thor's hand. This is different, she told herself. I made the right call then, but this is not there and then, it's here and now.

She lay her hammer on the ground and slowly, she walked to the soldier and touched its helmet, lifting it off. Beneath it, she saw a face that was not a face, a thing of unformed potential. 

Once more she sank beneath the flood of memories, but this time they were not her own. 

_Once upon a time..._

_There was a being called the Dark Man--not a god, but something simpler and more primal than a god. He was Fear itself in living form. No one quite knew where he came from. Perhaps he was born from the fear in the mind of Ymir as Odin struck him down. Together with his wife, Desire, he lived on the edge of Asgard. Odin faced him in an ordeal in his youth, and then Thor followed in his footsteps._

_In time, Fear and Desire conceived a child. At first it did not leave the womb because it was afraid of the world outside. It hid in crannies and shadows, away from the light, and it was never given a name. It crept by its father's bed at night and woke him up, and the Dark Man himself knew fear. The Dark Man locked his son away in total darkness in the cellar beneath his house. But as his son festered away in the dark, the Dark Man's fear grew, and the Unknown grew in turn. At last it broke free from the cellar, devoured its parents, and rampaged across Asgard before being vanquished by Odin and imprisoned in the vault where Jane would later face it._

_After her ordeal, it had broken free and brought fear to Asgard, until it was driven away at last by Thor and Sif. After the defeat of Mara, it had been spotted by the Dweller in Darkness, who had brought it to join the Fear Lords in order to take her place and fully seal her away. Its origin was unknown to all, for its nature allowed it to actively shield itself from the higher powers. It passed itself off as an unspeakably ancient entity. With the other Fear Lords it had faced Doctor Strange and been defeated, imprisoned within a gemstone, until in the siege of Doctor Strange's sanctum by the Lilim had set it free. It had schemed along with the rest of the Fear Lords until after the Secret Wars it had been imprisoned by Nox, seeking to remove all rivals to her power and rule the domain of fear herself._

_It had spent most of its life locked up--in the Dark Man's cellar, in Odin's vault, in Doctor Strange's gem and now the tower of Nox. But now, after touching Jane, it saw something in itself other than fear. It saw a path to freedom._

Jane looked into the face of the Unknown and still saw fear–of her future as a hero, her life with Darcy–but there was something else. The Unknown was every bit as dark and hidden and terrible as it once was, but now she was beautiful as well.

She raised up into the air and spread her wings, long and glorious, made of the darkness far deeper than the world around her. She ascended into the heights of the Tower of Shadows and its walls began to shake. The chamber faded away like a dream, and Jane stood in Nox's throne room once more. Its walls shattered like glass and the souls held there drifted upward like smoke, no longer screaming but singing in serene harmony. And in a flash of darkness, Jane saw Jimmy within the crystal throne, and he, too, rose up from within its walls. 

"No!" screams Nox. "It cannot be!" She stood alone in the space where the tower had been. Everything seemed so much smaller now, including her. "You," she snarled, her face contorted with rage and helplessness. "You have taken everything from me–all my power, all my dreams. You have taken all my souls, but I will have yours!" She drew the black blade she kept by her side–the soul-drinking sword she had boasted of. Her human form had grown thicker and clearer–with her realm falling apart, she was concentrating all her power within it. This rendered her dangerous but vulnerable. An insight struck Thor from within Jane's analytical mind: the sword was an external talisman, an artifact formed by a god from their own divine essence as a focus of their power, not unlike Mjolnir had been. It means she was on the ropes, and it could be turned against her.

"I need not strike you down," said Thor. "If you leave the realm of mortals be, I will leave you be."

"Never," said Nox. "I am the Queen of the Night and I shall not be denied. If I shall die," she said, "I will take you with me!" She lunged at Thor, sword in hand.

"Then you have cast your lot." Thor picked up her hammer and threw it anew and it buzzed through the chamber like a wasp, striking the sword from Nox's hand. The night-goddess lunged for the blade, but Thor grabbed it first and gripped it in her left hand. It was cold, so cold that touching it almost numbed Thor's hand, but she held it tight. With a swift, fluid motion, Thor stabbed Nox through the heart with her own sword.

Nox screamed as she was pulled into the sword. Her face was twisted in utter desolation. She tried to pull herself out of it but her body distorted more and more, and she became like a long shadow in the summer sun. The blade began to shake and vibrate like a jackhammer, and Thor could no longer hold it. The whole realm followed after her, pulled into a howling storm of darkness, which swirled into the blade. The blade and the vortex twisted in on themselves, shrinking away.

All that was left of Nyx and her realm was a single black rose.

The light faded in around Thor. She was in Central Park, lit by the midnight stars, her child lying fast asleep on the ground by her feet, along with several others who must have been trapped in Nox's realm. All that had passed seemed like nothing more than a dream.

"I did it!" Thor raised her hammer and whooped. "By Ymir's hairy balls, I did it!"

She didn't have long to rejoice before a group of power-armored soldiers, bearing the symbol of the Gorgoneion, came charging in–grunts who worked for Project Gorgon, obviously. With them was Nightshade and Jennifer Kale.

"You need not fear," said Thor. "Nox, the Queen of the Night, subduer of gods and men, has been vanquished. Thor, Goddess of Thunder, has triumphed!" She raised her hammer into the air once more. Jennifer Kale blushed.

"Well that's good to know," said Nightshade.

She debriefed Thor about everything that had happened, and Thor told her about her journey to the realm and battle with the night-goddess with many hand gestures acting out her fight. She didn't tell Nightshade about everything she'd seen or, oddly enough, about the Unknown. Already she was relishing the telling. The horror she'd witnessed was becoming a grand adventure. If only she had a beer glass to slam on the table for emphasis.

The next order of business was to, somewhat regretfully, take Jimmy back to the house of Dr. Kincaid. He was standing at the door, his eyes bloodshot. He'd no doubt been pacing around for hours. Thor almost felt sorry for him. She had almost felt sorry for Nox, too, in the end.

"You made it!" he said. He almost smiled when he saw Thor holding Jimmy in her arms. "Is Jimmy OK?"

"I don't know," said Thor. "The child has seen many terrible things, and–"

Jimmy opened his eyes and lit up with joy. "Dad! I just got kidnapped by this evil goddess and it was really scary," he says. "But it was great. Thor was there! She saved me. She was even cooler in person!"

"That's good to hear." Dr. Kincaid gave Jimmy a stiff hug. "He really loves you. He's always going on about you and how he likes you even more than the old Thor."

"As well he should," said Thor.

"Dad..." Jimmy said. "I wanna say something to Thor. Alone. Is that OK?"

"Sure, sure." Dr. Kincaid turned away and closed the door behind him.

Jimmy stood on his tiptoes and Thor lifted him up. He whispered in her ear: "Don't worry, mom, I won't tell him, OK?"

Thor laughed. "You're a lot better at figuring things out than I used to be. You'll go far in this world." There was so much she wanted to say, but all she could say was: "I'll see you again." She kissed him on the forehead and let him go, flying away. She didn't let herself cry until long after she was gone.

There was only one thing left to take care of now, but she didn't feel ready for it yet. Instead, she flew high up into the upper atmosphere, as she often did when she wanted to be alone. She ignored the world turning far below her and looked up at the stars. When she was in college, she used to watch them in telescopes and yearn to touch them. Now, she could see them up close, unhidden by the clouds of night or the lights of mortal men. From her brush with astronomy, Jane knew them by scientific, Latin names. Thor knew them by other names, names the Vikings navigated by, referring to stories now long lost in the mortal world

It was at moments like this when she felt most at peace, most at one with herself. Often Thor and Jane pulled her in different directions, but here they were united in wonder and peace, two ways of thinking that made up one mind, different and yet the same.

She'd defeated the goddess of the night, she'd saved the world, she'd saved her child. There was only one thing to deal with now. Darcy. Coming face to face with her deepest fears in the darkness beyond creation, she couldn't hide anymore what she truly felt, couldn't push it away or diminish it. She'd let some doubt about their feelings creep in since they'd first met again, but it had all been swept away. She loved her. 

So I'm gay, Jane thought. Queer. Something like that. She'd known that in her heart for a long time but never told herself that in so many words. There'd always been rationalizations. Part of her had wondered if it wasn't just an effect of the hammer, a leftover part of Odinson's mentality or even Sif's, but no, that was all Jane. The courage, the wrath, the power of Thor, all that lived in Jane's heart. So did the gay.

Part of her had thought, of course I'm straight, I loved Thor, didn't I? But It all made sense now that she thought about it. It wasn't uncommon for queer people to take on the qualities of people they were attracted to, becoming a collage of different crushes and doomed loves they've built up over the years. And Jane had seen a lot of lesbians talk about feeling an affinity for Thor. She wasn't sure if she could really call herself a lesbian–she'd really loved and desired Thor–Odinson–and part of her still did. But she'd never felt that way about any other man she could think of, however hard she'd tried. Darcy, though... If what she'd felt around Odinson was true love, the way she felt about Darcy was a lot closer to that than anything she'd ever felt around another man.

And–god. Now that there wasn't anything to distract her from feeling it, she knew for sure–she wanted her. She wanted to be held in her arms, to feel the warmth of their bodies pressing together. She wanted to–to do things she'd never let herself think about doing with a woman before, outside of the time she was merged with Sif, but god, that was what she wanted now more than anything–and especially with Darcy.

But was there any chance Darcy would feel the same way about her? Jane still wasn't 100% sure Darcy was queer. She had a feeling–come on, she told herself, no straight girl loves Carly Rae Jepsen THAT much–but was that just wishful thinking? Jane hadn't pushed Darcy on her love life, and they'd kind of talked around it, and Darcy had said a lot of little things that added up over the years seemed to indicate that she wasn't straight... Jane almost felt more afraid to face Darcy and tell her her feelings than anything she'd done before.

Go for her, you fool, thought Thor. She's your friend, she's been your friend forever. She won't stop being your friend even if she doesn't want you like you want her. And the chance is worth it. Don't you want to touch those breasts?

Well... thought Jane. Yes. Yes I do. The thought filled Jane with a warm flush, even though she was floating in the cold mesosphere. All right, all right. I'll do it. 

Thor meteored back down to Earth and transformed back to Jane by her apartment. Immediately she was struck by her racing heartbeat, as all the tensions he was carrying in her divine body hit her mortal one at once. Walking up the stairs and opening her own door was almost harder than entering the citadel of Nox. But she did. Darcy was waiting for her on the other side, pale and agitated.

"Jane!" Immediately she leaped on Jane and hugged her tight. It should have been calming, but feeling the touch she'd hungered for for so long just made Jane feel more churned up."You're OK!"

"Hi Darcy." Jane smiled weakly. "I made it."

"I knew you would, babe." She brushed her fingers through Jane's hair. The closeness was almost more than she could bear. Jane's eyes darted around the apartment and she saw Darcy's copy of My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness laying on the table–well there it is, she thought.

Jane took a deep breath. "Darcy, I.. I've got two things I gotta tell you, I guess." Darcy's mouth opened and her brow furrowed. She hurriedly nodded. "First of all, I'm Thor." Strangely, that was the easiest one to say.

"Oh my god." Darcy laughed.

"What's so funny."

"It's just--I figured. I mean, thanks for telling me, that's really brave. But like, that was such an obvious superhero speech, Janey." She patted her head. "As soon as there was a new lady Thor running around I basically figured it was you. Only you are close enough to Thor to get the hammer, and only you're that amazing."

"Aww." Okay. Could she really see through Jane that easily? If she knew that, did she know the other thing too? If so, there was no point in holding it back. It was a huge relief now to finally see it, to let go of the secret that had been hanging over for them for so long. 

"Second–I. I." She was having a hard time looking Darcy in the eye. She wanted to lead with her identity first, since that seemed a little safer, but she still hadn't quite found the word that felt right for herself. "I'm, I'm in love with you," she spat out, " and I've been in love with you since basically forever, and I only just let myself admit that I guess, yeah. I'm not straight, and I was never straight, and I love women, especially you." Her heart sank preemptively. There was no way Darcy could feel the same way. Too much water had flown under the bridge. Jane wanted to run away back into the darkness beyond the universe and curl up into a ball and fade away into nothing.

A huge, eager smile spread across Darcy's face. "Oh my god. Oh my god. You're blushing. Jane. Janey. You are just too cute." She dipped Jane over and pulled her in, and kissed her tightly, pressing her warm lips up against hers and overwhelming her with the softness of her body. As Jane opened her mouth, Darcy thrust her tongue in. Jane's fear and nervousness slipped away and she sank into the warmth of Darcy's kiss. She felt needs, reflexes, muscle memory taking over that she hadn't known since Sif. She pressed her tongue up against Darcy's, feeling the energy arc between them like lightning.

Jane pulled back and took a deep breath and then started laughing. "Wow. Wow."

"I've been waiting, like, twenty years to do that, Jane," said Darcy, running her fingers through Jane's hair.

Darcy kissed Jane's neck while her hands traced down her skin, across her shoulders. Jane quivered happily. Darcy's hands moved down, rubbed her shoulders, wandered over her body and pressed into it, claimed it. Jane quivered and trembled. and then suddenly Darcy's fingers brushed up against her breasts. Her nipples sparked to life. Jane's small, hard, pert nipples were extremely sensitive, and sometimes, when Sif was still a part of her, she'd come just from playing with them, letting the goddess take over her hands and grasp her. She hadn't played with them since Sif had left, so the new sensation was sudden and startling, like opening up a closed window shade into the morning light.

She bit her lip and moaned.

"Whoa!" said Darcy. "Is that good?"

Jane gasped and nodded furiously. "Yes. Yes. More of that please."

She was drowning in the warmth of Darcy's body pressed up against her own. She felt her soft breasts up close, and suddenly realized how much she'd wanted this ever since she'd known her. She found her hands wandering up to Darcy's breasts..

Darcy pulled out of the kiss and Jane gasped for breath. "You can totally grab my boobs now if you want," said Darcy. Jane hesitantly put her hand on Darcy's breasts, feeling the warmth, and firmness of them. It was such a nice and satisfying feeling. Her hands fumblingly unbuttoned Darcy's PJs, reaching down under them and feeling reaches down under the bra, felt the softness and springiness of them in her hands--it was so much better than she ever could have imagined. She squeezed gently, then harder as Darcy began to moan, exploring the shape and the feeling of them. Jane traced her fingers along the areola, feeling the kind of awe and wonder you might on handling a priceless artifact.. Darcy gasped. "They're super sensitive. If you licked them I would get way, way turned on even more than I already am."

That was all Jane needed to hear. She kneeled down and put the soft nipple onto her mouth, then sucked gently. Her tongue caressed it and then she started sucking. It was much larger than her own nipples, and the feel of it on her tongue was satisfying. Darcy put her arms around her and gripped her shoulders tight, pressing her body up against Jane's, rocking back and forth. Jane could feel the sweat and the scent of need and desire.

And then Darcy flopped down onto the couch and pulled Jane with her. She lay on top of Darcy, enveloped in the warmth of her body. And then they were kissing again, and they were pouring their need and desire and love into each other, and Darcy grabbed her cheeks and kissed her again and again, greedily, hungrily. Her body began to rock back and forth, pressing her crotch up against Jane's. Jane felt the sudden burst of hunger, the powerful need, more strongly than she had in forever, and moaned. 

"I've been masturbating thinking about this for years, Janey. It's so weird–oh–we're actually doing it–ohhhh." Darcy bit her lip as Jane's fingers moved down to her warm, wet vagina. Jane pressed up against her clit through the PJs. "Fuckfuckfuckfuck. Mmmm." Feeling desired made Jane feel powerful; energy tingled on her skin. Now there was nothing that could hold her back. She moved her hand into Darcy's underwear and began to press her fingers into her vagina. 

Jane had completely lost track of the outside world, forgot that the world existed outside of Darcy's body and forgot all about the couch until they rolled together off the couch and fell onto the floor with a thump. Jane laughed. "Ha ha, wow. You OK, Darcy?"

 

"Oh, yeah. Wasn't the first time this happened to me."

"Maybe we should, ah, do this on the bed."

"Sure. That's what they're for. And sleeping, I guess."

"Who even sleeps anymore."

They skipped off hand in hand to the bed. Darcy lay on it, then grabbed Jane by the shoulders and pulled her on top of it. Jane rested her head beneath Darcy's legs and hurriedly undid her pants and her underwear. She knew what to do with the same kind of intense, immediate clarity she'd felt when she first picked up the hammer. First she pressed in her fingers, teased her lovingly and slowly. Darcy began to quiver and moan. Then she thrust her head between Darcy's legs, nestling in her soft thighs, and began to slowly and methodically lick, pulling her vagina open with her fingers. It was a wonderful, intoxicating taste. She was lost completely in the feeling.

"Oh god yes," said Darcy. "Mmm, Jane, Jane, keep doing that. Yes." Darcy grabbed the back of her head and pulled her in, pressing her up tight, immersing her in the wetness. Jane moaned when Darcy gripped her hair. Darcy pulled tight on it and Jane felt a sharp shock of pleasure. She started nodding quickly, laughing briefly at the feeling of her tongue bobbing up and down. Darcy pulled harder. Jane pressed in as deep as she could, hungrily tasting the depths with her tongue, eagerly licking up every inch of it, while still pressing up against Darcy's clit with her fingers. Darcy started quivering, rocking back and forth. She was close to coming. Then Jane pressed her tongue on Darcy's clit and started sucking it, running her tongue over it. Darcy groaned loudly as her flesh trembled, pressing up more against her face until Jane almost felt like she could melt into her, then let it out into a scream of pleasure.

For a moment, the world stood still and they were silent. They paused and panted for breath. "Wow," said Jane.

"Yeah, really wow," said Darcy. "I had no idea you were so, uh. Wow."

"Darcy, you're my friend–" that was a hell of a thing to say after she'd just made her come, although Darcy'd always been one for more casual relationships, usually–'my–Darcy, are we dating now?"

"Jane, that is a hell of a time to be asking that. You really are a queer girl. Yes. We are."

"OK, you're my friend, and my girlfriend, and my roommate, and one of the most important people in my life and I wanted to make you feel good."

"Well you really did. Now it's your turn, babe. Get on the bed." 

Darcy grabbed Jane's hands, flipped her over and lay her down on the bed. She flopped on top of her, kissed her and caressed her, testing her body and finding the places where she responded the most. She kissed her up and down her body, starting with her lips, then down her neck and her chest and her stomach, all the way down to her vagina. Darcy poked Jane's clit with her tongue and Jane squirmed. She slipped off Jane's panties and showered her vagina with kisses, and Jane giggled a bit.

"How are you feeling, Janey?"

"It's... like someone set off a firecracker in my vagina, but it's good." That was the goofiest thing she'd ever said in her entire life, even compared to things she said when she was Thor, but they were both beyond caring.

"Well I'd better put it out... with my tongue!" Darcy stuck out her tongue and wiggled it around.

"Darcy, that's not how that w--MMMF!"

She showered Jane's thighs with kisses, first the left and then the right, while Jane wriggled and moaned and ran her fingers through Darcy's lush, thick hair

Jane could feel herself changing. It was like learning a new language. It was like picking up the hammer for the first time. Jane felt the part of herself that belonged to Darcy, long buried beneath the surface, breaking through. It was so wonderful it almost hurt.

"Hey babe," said Darcy. "You enjoying this?"

Jane nodded vigorously but realized Darcy couldn't hear her. "Sorry I–sometimes I just go quiet during sex. Yes. Yes I am. Keep going."

"Sure thing," said Darcy. Darcy looked up at Jane, wiggled her eyebrows at her, and dived deep into Jane's vagina, teasing it with her tongue, licking more and more thoroughly and powerfully, building up a rhythm that carried Jane away into ecstasy she'd never imagined before. "Yes, yes, yes," she said, trying to grab onto language from a place far beyond worlds. "Good. Yes. Oh god."

Darcy reached up and gripped Jane's thighs with her hands. Jane gasped. She reached down and held tight onto Darcy's right hand, their fingers clasped together just like when they'd walked on the beach in the old days, while her left played with Jane's clit. The pleasure, the thoroughness of the sensation in her body, the closeness and intimacy with Darcy that she'd longed for and kept herself knowing how much she wanted for such a long time, overwhelmed her all at once and she came, harder than she had ever come before in her life. Something cracked open inside her like thawing ice, all the desire and pleasure that she'd held in her body and kept herself from, flooding her at once. She felt pleasure with a kind of intensity she'd only felt before with pain. She came, and again, and again, while Darcy worked at her, and all her need and pleasure burst out of her in a tremendous scream.

Then she felt herself ebbing and settling down, while Darcy gradually slowed, the motions of her tongue and her hands calming now rather than stimulating. After a while she stopped–Jane felt both relief and disappointment at this–crawled up onto the bed, and settled down on Jane's body like a cat. Jane held her and hugged her tight, wanting to draw her into herself, never letting go. She felt like she wanted to keep going, making love forever, but her body just didn't have the energy for it.

Darcy's touch was calming now. She felt like a big pillow. "Oh my god, Jane. You OK?".

"Yeah," Jane laughed nervously, "I just... I haven't... In a while."

"Yeah, I could tell."

"I've been through a lot today."

"I'll bet."

Jane nestled herself into Darcy's body–they were both drenched in sweat, but she didn't mind. Darcy's fingers gently touched her hair, and Jane was out like a light.

That night she dreamed about Odin again. Jane and Darcy were at an anime convention, and he was there with them, his two ravens sitting on his shoulder. They were waiting in line for the original dub voice actor of Tuxedo Mask (whose name Jane couldn't remember), but even though people were getting autographs and moving on, the line didn't seem to be getting any shorter. Odin grumbled and stamped his feet and muttered to himself. Jane didn't care–she was holding Darcy's hand. Even waiting in line was wonderful with her. The touch of her hand was the only thing that mattered. The original dub voice actor for Tuxedo Mask, suddenly wearing his outfit, leaped up and did a triple flip in the air and landed on top of a nearby booth, then threw a rose–a perfectly normal red rose. Jane caught it and handed it to Darcy, and she wrapped her arms around her and kissed her. The room was clapping and Jane thought she could hear fireworks going off in the background.

Jane woke to hear Darcy, still asleep, snoring like a dragon–and Thor had heard dragons snore, she was speaking from experience–but somehow, Jane didn't mind. Normally, alone in bed like this, she was always being assaulted by her own thoughts, fears, and anxieties, but they were quiet now. All her mind was taken up with the feeling of Darcy.

There we go, thought Jane: a perfectly normal incomprehensible dream. 

Through the blinds she could see the sun rising. A new day was beginning, and a new part of her life. She was entering into a whole other world now, a world that was strange and new to her, as Asgard once had been, but she was better prepared to handle it. And she knew she wouldn't be facing it alone this time. She had Darcy, and Sif, and Odinson, and yes, even Loki. In this new phase of her life there'd be new friends, new enemies, new adventures and quests and battles that would make her head hurt trying to explain them afterwards. That was the way of superheroes. But if it meant being able to rest in Darcy's arms like this, she was ready for all of it, and she would face it with a smile on her face and a hammer in her hand.

Because she was Jane Foster. She was Thor. And she was worthy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _There was a being called the Dark Man_ : First appearing in a flashback story in Thor #323, he was originally unrelated to the Unknown or any other fear-based enemies Thor had faced.
> 
> _the siege of Doctor Strange's sanctum by the Lilim_ : Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #60, part of the Seige of Darkness crossover
> 
> The original dub voice actor for Tuxedo Mask was Rino Romano.
> 
> * * *
> 
> The incident was over now. As usual, Nightshade and her team were in charge of cleaning up the mess. They had to account for all the creations of Nox and the remains of the goddess herself.
> 
> Of the monsters, half of them had died. Half of those remaining had transformed back into humans with no memory of who and what they were. Others stayed as monsters–most of these would be sent off to Monster Island, and one of them had actually applied to work with Project Gorgon. 
> 
> Many of the souls in Nox's realm had moved on, but some, with strong connections to this life, returned. Many missing people had turned up, some of whom were thought lost forever, curiously not having aged a day since their disappearance. As for its goddess...
> 
> Nightshade watched the black rose under the sunlamp. It was held in an elegant, curved glass case, enchanted by Jennifer Kale. It hissed and vibrated, still trying to escape the case. They could have tried to destroy it, of course, but that might have caused more problems than it solved. And it was worth studying–how many times could you get your hands on an elder god? Even in this weakened form, she was power, pure power itself. Nightshade almost wanted to reach out, open the case and touch the rose. She felt a strange affinity for it–not surprising, given her own name. But... One of the hard-won lessons of her life was that there were times when too much power was just as dangerous as too little. 
> 
> "Forget it," she whispered. "You're going nowhere."
> 
> She shoved it in the box and sent it to where it would be under constant light.
> 
> But deep within the rose, Nox waited. She was old and she was patient, and she could wait, if need be, for the world to end. But she would not have to wait long. All she needed was for someone with deep unexpressed rage to touch the rose and unleash its power. And she was coming soon.


End file.
